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^•S^MWtfcVw^U) U .•ix, v tv« ^^jvt-v — 16 The Altamont Entjerpri8e J ± fhur$da&March.jti6i0Q6 ...•. Whut went wrong? raise pi ill 14. (Continued from Page 1) The Comptroller claims McCartney made questionable payments to himself totaling $127,338 over J6 years, and Marturano improperly received $89,069 over 11 years time. Marturano, the only one of the pair to speak to the press, has maintained he took only what he was entitled to and that the documentation, including con- tracts, will bear him out. Which one? The biggest surprise among the small pile of contracts is that there are two contracts. on •file for McCartney dated Feb. 11, 2002; the school district and the State Comptrollers office have differing opinions on which one is valid. The February, 2002 document is McCartney's last contract with the district, which carried his employment through to his re- tirement in the summer of 2005. Both contracts have attached to its back the same signature page, but information within the documents varies. One of the two contracts has sections that are highlighted in bold face. This is the copy that Superitendent Linda Langevin said the district believes to be valid, because it lists the con- cluding date to be July, 1, 2005. The other contract has an em- ployment-ending date of July 15, 2005. • The difference could be signi- figant because McCartney claimed additional vaction dates with the start of the new fiscal year for schools beginning July 1. When the school board ap- proved McCartney's 2002 con- . tract, the minutes of that Feb- ruary meeting state that the Doard unanimously approved \the extension of the superinten- dent contract through July 1, 2005.\ A May, 2002 Enterprise article states, \With the one-year con- tract extension McCartney will retire in three years on June 30, 2005.\ It appears that, at that time, it was clear that McCartney's contract would to run out at the same time as the school's regular fiscal year on June 30. The school board has said that it asked McCartney if he would work for an extra two weeks in July to help with the transition to the new Superintendent, which he agreed to do. Langevin started work on July 1, 2005. She told The Enterprise this week that, when she arrived to work on her first day, McCart- ney was in their office sitting at his desk and announced that the computer had just crashed, erasing files. When the state comptroller's auditors were doing a routine audit of the district, part of a five-year plan to audit all schools across New York over the next five years, they discov- ered the two February, 2002 contracts. The district was not aware of two versions existing before that, Langevin said. She also stated that the district does not know how or when the one contract, valid until July 1, gained bolded font. The school district's attorney in the pending lawsuit, Dennis Curtin, from a firm in Plattsburgh, told The Enterprise' that legally there cannot be two contracts at the same time. No other copies of the contract can be found, Langevin .said. The only two copies in the dis- trict's possession at the time of the audit were found in McCart- ney's folder in his office, Langevin said- From now on, contracts will be attached to the filed minutes of meetings in which they are rati- fied, Langevin said. Unfortunately, the school di s- trict's attorneys did not have any versions, she said, because the. board found out in retrospect that they were not reviewed by Difference in 2002 contracts The contract with the ending date of July 15 states that, if the board wants to extend the con- tract, it has to be decided no later than March. 30, that McCartney has 35 days of vaca : tion, and that the indemnifica- * stipulations of the two weeks of additional work. When asked if the old contract has run out but an employee has continued working with verbal permission, does the old contract continue if a new one isn't drafted, Langevin said that it would, and typically the em- through the superintendent, Marturano said. And that agreement reflects what was in the administrative contract, he said. \I never in the process talked to the board of education as a whole,\ Marturano said, so the assertion that the board was 'With the one-year contract extension McCartney will retire in three years on June 30,2005.' The Enterprise — Holly Grosch Dr. Alan McCartney, right, chatted with the previous school board president Robert Baron, at last year's community and school foundation^ gala. the schools' attorney as they had thought. Also, no board member retained a copy for himself, Langevin said. Langevin said on Tuesday that even the Teacher's Retirement System has the same two ver- sions that the district discovered they had, with bolded face and all. Langevin said she believes the contract with the July 1 con- cluding date to be the valid document. McCartney nor his attorney returned phone calls from The Enterprise this week McCart- ney previously told The Enter- prise his lawyer had advised him not to speak to the press. Jennifer Freeman of the state comptroller's office reported this week to The Enterprise that the state auditors recognized the 2002 contract with the conclud- ing date of July 15 because it most matched the actual prac- \ tices of the school. The defining clause for the auditors was that the non- bolded version listed 35 days of vacation as McCartney's allot- ment per year, which is what the district had been using in prac- tice, she said. . The auditors are of the opin- ion that, when the district nego- tiated the 2002 contract, it had at the time planned ahead and anticipated wanting a transition time to a new chief officer, so it took that into account when it wrote the contract to conclude on July 15. The auditors are now of the opinion that McCartney worked an extra two weeks beyond the close of the fiscal school year because that was in his contract rather than believing McCartney worked an extra two weeks be- yond his contract. Freeman added that the state's auditors had recom- mended to Voorheesville, in order to avoid a situation like this in the future, it should have the district's attorney review the contract, so this type of thing ahead of time can be resolved. tion clause of the contract shall survive the term and be enforce- able after the termination of the agreement. The contract with the ending date of July 1 states that, if the board wants to extend the con- tract, it must be done by no later than April 30, that McCartney is entitled to 40 days of vacation a year, and the sentence about indemnification surviving past the dates of the agreement is completely gone; instead the page has an unexplained space, a line skip that does not fit with the rest of the document's for- mat. ' ployee is paid by the day. Since McCartney did work into a new fiscal year, regardless of the July 1 or July 15 ending date of his 2002 contract, his work would fall under his exist- ing contract either way. Neither contract explicitly states how the vacation days are allocated. Langevin said that, if the con- tract does not explicitly say \credited meaning everything up front, then days are auto- matically accrued. Marturano Maturano still asserts to The Enterprise that he has not done anything that is not permitted by his contracts. A December, 1999 memoran- dum of agreement which the school board resolved on Dec. 6 of that year gives Marturano a $6,667 stipened for each of the last three years of his employ- ment, which amounts to an extra $20,000 under a clause that states the extra money to his base salary is for unused sick days. Under this clearly written memorandum of agreement it seems that Marturano would be entitled to this money, which is part of the total sum the board is now trying to get back. The school board has all along admitted that it approved this stipend and a similar one for McCartney spread over the last three years of employment for both men. Curtin, the school district's at- torney for the lawsuit, told The 'I never in the process talked to the board of education as a whole.' The clauses on sick leave and compensation are the same in each contract. So why does it matter if the contract ended on the July 1 or 15? Because a new school fiscal year in the state's school calen- dar begins on July 1, and, each fiscal year, employees receive new benefits. Langevin said, if the contract did go into the next fiscal year, then some new benefits would kick in. Curtin, the lawyer represent- ing Voorheesville, said that, while the board had verbally agreed to allow McCartney to work into July, the board is of the opinion that the position is prorated. A superintendent would not receive all his vaca- tion up front but, instead, it would be prorated proportion- ately, according to the length of time he worked. There is no written contract or agreement between the board and McCartney laying out the Enterprise this week, that the board is arguing that Mar- turano was not entitled to that money because the board was misled by McCartney and Mar- turano to believe they were enti- tled to money for unused sick leave, when they actually were not. Marturano told The Enterprise that that the allegation that he had coerced the board is totally unfounded because he had never discussed with the board as a whole his contract. Marturano said he had wanted to settle his final con- tract in anticipation of retire- ment months earlier than De- cember of 1999 but the board wanted to wait until it had set- tled on the administrators con- tract with the administrative bargaining unit, which was ne- gotiated by two board members of a subcommittee. Shortly after the administra- tive contracts were settled, a package was offered to him under his corrupt influence \doesn't make any sense,\ Mar- turano said. The school board's lawsuit against Marturano also claims that he owes the district money because one of the stipulations of the stipend for unused sick days, the stipend that they believed the board says it was coerced into, is that, if Marturano did not retire at the end of the school year of 2001-02, he was required to pay back the stipend. The 1999 agreement states that, if Marturano continues his employment \after the retire- ment date, he would be required to repay 100 percent of the sti- pend with a penalty of 9 percent interest compounded per year by September 1 st .\ The school and Marturano disagreed on his official termina- tion date. All the 1999 memorandum of agreement says is that Mar- turano desires to retire at the end of the 2001-02 school year but does not list an explicit date. The school takes the posi- tion that his retirement date is the last day of the 2002 fiscal school year, meaning June 30 or July 1 st , while Marturano says it was clear all along that his re- tirement date was to be at the start of August. He said when that, December, 1999 agreement was approved by the school board, it also approved at that time, his August retirement date. So, Marturano said, it is completely bogus that he worked an extra month. The Enterprise has filed a freedom-of-information request for the minutes of the meeting, to which it is entitled, but has not yet been given a copy. McCartney's sick days While McCartney's final con- tract in 2002 does not reference a stipend as Marturano's final agreement does, all the board members agree and previous Enterprise articles confirm that in calculating McCartney's sal- ary for the last three years of his employment, the district gave him extra raises because of all the sick time he had accumu- lated and not used. School board President Joseph Pofit has said that McCartney represented to the board that incorporating pay compensation into his salary over three years would be more cost efficient for the district than paying out one large lump sum for unused sick' days at the end of his employ- ment. He also led the board to believe it could have a lawsuit on its hands because. of all the money it owed him, $100,000, Pofit said The school board claims now that McCartney, lite Marturano. was never entitled to financial compensation for unused sick days and that board members were misinformed by the chief officers they trusted, McCartney in nis 16 years (Continued on next page) It
