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PUSD Supt. fired over $345,000 in alleged unauthorized payments

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Poway Unified School District board members voted unanimously Sunday night to fire Supt. John Collins and to initiate a civil lawsuit to recoup money they say he owes the district.

The announcement came following a nearly four-hour closed session held at the district office. All five board members were in attendance.

In a statement, board President Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff said that Collins’ termination was due to over $345,000 in “overpayments and unauthorized payments” discovered during an audit of Collins’ contract.

“The board was dismayed when the final audit report identified $320,769 in overpayments and unauthorized payments made to Dr. Collins, and an additional $24,494 in other transactions that violated district policies. The severity of the findings justified terminating the superintendent’s contract for cause,” said O’Connor-Ratcliff in her statement.

“The board was prepared to listen to any additional information or explanation Dr. Collins and his attorney wished to offer,” the statement said. “Following the conference, the board unanimously rendered the difficult decision to terminate his employment with the district.”

A statement of charges filed by the board against Collins, obtained by the Voice of San Diego, listed the charges against him as engaging in unprofessional conduct, dishonesty and “persistently violating and refusing to obey the laws of the state and reasonable regulations prescribed by the governing board of Poway Unified School District for the operation of the district schools.”

Pomerado News was unable to obtain a copy of the charges from the district or the board’s attorney and cannot verify any of the information in the document as being correct.

Maribel Medina, the board’s personal attorney, hired VLS Forensic Services of Glendora to conduct the audit of Collins’ contract. A redacted version of the audit report, dated June 22, was released by the district on Monday afternoon.

Collins’ lawyer, Lynne Lasry, released a statement, saying, “For the almost three decades that Dr. Collins has served PUSD, he has had the best interests of its students and its employees in mind. Dr. Collins will vigorously defend against these charges, and expects to take affirmative and decisive action in response to the district’s actions.”

Lasry’s statement also said that the independent audit released by the district is “replete with errors, both legal and substantive” and includes privacy violations of Dr. Collins and others, even in its redacted form. “The audit clearly ignores evidence which supports Dr. Collins, and includes questionable presentations of summaries which rely on unseen documents and/or mischaracterizations of many circumstances and events,” said Lasry in her statement.

The alleged overpayments totaling $345,263 include $77,241 in base pay, $132,090 in longevity pay and $109,792 in vacation payout, as well as $1,646 for internet services, paid out of the revolving cash fund, a petty cash fund meant for expediting small purchases, emergency payments and reducing purchasing costs. Purchases through the RCF should never exceed $150, according to district policy.

Vacation payouts

Collins cashed in his vacation hours four times since August 2012, an option that VLS said was not included in his contract Collins’ contract states that outstanding vacation days could be cashed out upon departure from the job.

One of these payouts took his vacation hours into the negative balance. He took a payout of 80 vacation hours in the 2012-13 school year, 176.50 hours in the 2013-14 year and 513.18 hours, or 64 days, in 2014-15. That vacation payout took his hours into the negative by 269.68 hours.

A fourth vacation payout of 160 hours in 2015-16 took him further into the negative, resulting in Collins having negative 445.68 hours, according to calculation done by VLS in the report.

“As of April 2016, the district shows the Mr. Collins has a vacation balance of 88.02 hours (11 days), however VLS calculated an ending balance of negative 445.68 hours (55.71 days). This is a total difference of 533.70 hours (66.7125 days),” said the report.

Collins received $148,457.42 from these vacation payouts. Recalculating from Collins’ existing vacation hours (28 days), VLS said in the report that Collins would need to pay the district back $109,791.93 for these payouts.

The report also showed that Collins took several days off without reporting them as vacation or sick days. VLS identified these days through emails and texts obtained through Collins’ district-provided electronic devices. This included Collins taking the entire month of July 2015 off (22 days), but only reporting 10 vacation days and two sick days, according to the audit report.

Base Pay

Collins received over $77,000 in base pay to which he was not entitled, based on satisfactory performance reviews, according to the audit report. VLS stated in its audit report that there was no documentation that showed that Collins had received satisfactory performance reviews in the years when he took base-pay raises, which ranged from a roughly 2 percent salary increase to 5 percent, based on the year. In 2015-16, Collins received a 5 percent base pay raise, despite his contract stating that his base pay of $297,735 is effective through June 30, 2017 unless the board takes action (to increase his pay). According to the report, there is no evidence that the board took action to increase his salary this year.

These raises also raised additional questions, as they were tied to the pay of other administrators in the district, which the audit said was unusual.

“It is uncommon for the superintendent’s contract to include a clause that he receive the same salary adjustments and benefits as the administrative management group (certified management) as this results in him bargaining for benefits that directly impact his compensation, which could be perceived as a conflict of interest,” said the report.

Longevity

According to the audit report, Collins has received $132,000 in unearned longevity pay. Longevity steps are a 2.5 percent increase in pay at the end of 10, 15, 20 and 25 years of service in the district. The audit report says that these increases are compounded, according to Paula Rians, payroll supervisor for the district. Collins earned a total of $144,692 in longevity pay between 2008 and 2016, though VLS calculated that he should only have earned $12,602 for longevity.

Emails from December 2015 between Collins and Malliga Tholandi, retired associate superintendent of Business Support Services, indicated that Collins was interested in increasing the longevity pay percentages to 3 percent at 15 years, 3.5 percent at 20 years and 4 percent at 25 years. Collins’ suggested increases were never implemented.

“Mr. Collins would have directly benefitted from any increases to the longevity pay steps discussed in the email mentioned above,” said VLS in the audit report.

Other discrepancies

The audit also uncovered $24,494 in what the report calls “transactions that violate district policy,” including $5,475 in P-card (Purchasing card, a district credit card issued to an employee of the district for the purpose of making authorized purchases on the district’s behalf) purchases, a $17,000 vacation payout conducted through the RCF and $2,019 in RCF purchases that exceeded the $150 limit.

The audit report shows that Collins used his P-card for several personal expenses, including airfare for a personal trip Collins took with his family, costing $2,267.20. Collins reimbursed the district for this cost in 2013.

Funds obtained from Collins’ vacation payouts appear to have been intended to pay personal bills, according to emails and texts obtained by VLS. Redacted copies of many emails and texts were included in the report.

Text messages between Collins and his family revealed financial issues, including the inability to get their BMW repaired at the dealer; and expressed worries about finances and referenced depositing $17,000 in the bank, an amount requested by Collins as a vacation payout that was issued through the RCF, not payroll, as payroll had already been processed for the month when he made his request, according to the report. Collins told Tholandi at the time that he needed the money to pay for an attorney he had retained, said VLS in the report.

An email from December 2015 indicated that Collins would not be able to purchase a new home in 2016, and several other emails between Collins and his wife spoke of worrying about having enough money in their bank account to buy groceries and pay bills.

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