From the Rapid City Journal comes a story of a 100,000 payoff to a city employee with lots of taxpayer funds, but very few details:
The city of Box Elder is paying its city attorney $100,000 to resign.
and…
After the executive session, the council reconvened in open session, and all five of the council members present voted to pay Vetri $50,000 from the city and another $50,000 from the South Dakota Public Assurance Alliance (a liability carrier).
The meeting’s minutes say the payments are conditioned upon a release of all claims, as well as Vetri’s immediate resignation and the inclusion of non-disparagement and non-disclosure requirements in a signed agreement.
Go read all the details (or lack thereof) here.
While some of this is coming out of funds from the South Dakota Public Assurance Alliance pool, $50,000 of it is coming out of local taxpayer funds. And there’s no indication of what thing took place to cause the need for the city to pay off a public employee in the amount of $100,000 over her salary. Especially when “non-disparagement and non-disclosure requirements” are part of the agreement.
Because when a public entity is involved, and taxpayer funds are involved, there would seem to be a compelling reason to prohibit the suppression of speech and disclosure.
Agree with PP. I’m not saying it’s improper — just that voters & taxpayers deserve to understand what happened. That’s a significant sum.
Lack of pertinent details makes the entire proceedings more than improper.
Similarly, our school board in Huron told a previous superintendent to take a hike, and IIRC gave him $130,000 a year for three years to ease the pain. Board never told the public, nor revealed what went wrong. (The Mitchell Daily Republic got the story.) Imagine, like most firings, it’s one part incompetence and an equal part character, usually lying. Frustrating, though, that the public has to be left in the dark, like the good people of Box Elder.
MDR will sue the Huron School Board while providing cover for their own.