Riverside Board To Buy Out Superintendent Financially Strapped District To Pay For Remaining 3 Years On Contract

The Riverside School District board voted 3-2 early Friday to buy out the three years remaining on the contract of embattled Superintendent Jerry Wilson.

After closed-door meetings with the board, Wilson agreed to resign in exchange for the buyout.

The release and severance package calls for Wilson to receive $325,000, payable in installments over 15 years, plus interest on the amount, and benefits.

Friday’s action was the culmination of more than a year of turmoil within the district, including a teacher walkout and demonstration against Wilson on June 8.

“Absolutely outstanding,” said Riverside middle school teacher Stephen Nicol when told about the buyout.

“The district can now start to heal and move forward,” said Nicol. “I’ve got all kinds of hope now.”

Wilson, who ends his 21-year tenure as superintendent on Sept. 30, declined to talk about the buyout.

“I’m just better off not saying anything,” he said.

Friday’s vote was a victory for a grassroots movement of parents who organized a drive to elect two new board members last fall.

Newcomers Patrick Payne and Paula Thorngate were joined by Rande Kummer, a recent board appointee, in voting for the severance package.

Board president Janet Hansen and Sandy Ross voted no.

Ross said several options were discussed with Wilson during the closed-door sessions on Monday and Thursday.

“To me this was the financially irresponsible option,” she said. “I think we could have spent our taxpayers’ money more wisely.”

Wilson, 59, earned more than $140,000 a year in salary and benefits.

The severance package is set up as an annuity in which the district will make monthly payments of $2,918 to Wilson for 15 years, or $525,000. The total amount grows because the annuity earns 7 percent interest a year.

The board retained the right to pay off the annuity at any time.

The decision to make monthly payments was made because the district has been strapped for cash.

Business manager Kathy Stroyan said the district’s cash reserve is at zero. Declining enrollments and new state limits on special education reimbursements have played into the revenue problems.

Enrollment dropped from 2,258 students in 1995-96 to 2,058 last school year. State funding is based on enrollment.

In addition, teachers in the Riverside Education Association have worked without a new employment agreement for a year now.

“We are already in dire straits,” Stroyan said. “I am the business manager, and I am concerned how this will affect the district financially.”

Friday’s agreement also calls for Wilson to receive pay for 30 days of accrued vacation, 180 days of accrued sick leave and personal leave.

His medical and life insurance premiums will be paid by the district through June 30, 2003, which was the end of his former contract with the district.

If the district makes payments over 15 years, the total value of the package will come to about $650,000.

The buyout was approved after the board convened Monday in closed-door negotiations with Wilson and his lawyer.

The board reconvened Thursday evening. Wilson submitted his resignation. The buyout was approved in open public session at 1:30 a.m. Friday.

The action came less than two months after the school board voted to extend Wilson’s contract for the next three years.

Wilson’s previous contract required the board to notify him by May 1 if it intended not to renew his contract. The board at the time was apparently deadlocked 2-2 on the question of retaining Wilson.

As a result, it was essentially forced to renew his contract in June for the next three years.

Kummer joined the board as an appointee on June 1.

He is a neighbor and friend of Wilson, but spent several weeks holding meetings and talking with district parents and teachers before siding with the newly elected board members.

“He did a fabulous job,” said Candice Payne, wife of board member Patrick Payne and mother of two Riverside students.

She was one of the parents who got involved last year in a group called Community Partners for Riverside Schools. It disbanded to avoid being labeled a political organization, but its members continued to push for more parental involvement in schools.

The parents, who viewed Wilson as an obstacle and an adversary, were behind the drive to elect a new board majority.

“We want this school district to come together this fall with helping hands to make this school district the best it can be,” Candice Payne said.

James Cummins, a parent on a budget advisory committee, said the district will work through its financial problems and be “bigger and better than before.”

About Wilson, Cummins said: “He could not communicate or cooperate with the community.”

Mary McClure, who teaches in the sixth grade and at the alternative high school, said the buyout comes at a high price.

“It’s a bittersweet victory for us,” she said.

The financial problems end up hurting teachers because a lack of money will make it more difficult to teach under new state learning requirements, teachers said.

Wilson had a reputation for exercising power.

“He had a stranglehold on that board for years,” McClure said.

Relations were so bad a number of teachers decided to leave their jobs, including Marvin Sather, who was named Washington state’s Teacher of the Year last October.

Sather was out of town Friday and unavailable for comment.

Teacher Nicol said Wilson had his strengths as an administrator. “Personnel is not one of them,” he said.