Group uses OPRA requests to try to stop payment to former superintendent
OCEAN CITY — Members of civic group Fairness in Taxes are advocating for a local candidate to be chosen as the next superintendent of the Ocean City School District while pushing the school board not to pay the former superintendent anything more.
David Breeden, president of FIT, and Vic Staniec have appeared before the Ocean City Board of Education during public comment over the summer.
Through Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests, Breeden has been documenting days missed, regular late arrivals and other information about former superintendent Dr. Matthew Friedman, arguing it justifies not paying him a buyout for unused vacation days.
Friedman served the district for the 2022-23 school year after being chosen by the school board in spring 2022, but about midway through his tenure began looking for another position. He was hired as superintendent by the Quakertown (Pa.) Community School District and announced his intent to finish the school year at the end of June.
Staniec and Breeden have also assailed the school board for choosing Friedman in the first place.
“I have to get something off my chest,” Staniec told the board at its Aug. 24 meeting. “ I can’t for the life of me understand how you ever selected Dr. Friedman as our superintendent.”
Saying he knows about education from his some 50 years of experience and holding a doctorate in education, Staniec told the board, “In his last job he was only there for two years and decided to apply to Ocean City as a steppingstone.”
Staniec said he knew Friedman was not looking to stay long-term because he only wanted a three-year contract, compared to Dr. Kathleen Taylor, who had three five-year contracts and retired from the district in 2021.
Friedman lives in Downingtown, Pa. “That’s five hours a day, commuting back and forth. You didn’t think this was a problem?”
Staniec said Friedman had three other jobs.
“If I’m hiring a superintendent, I want him to dedicate his life to the school district, not to his three other jobs,” he said. “He spent time while he was here, and we have proof, working on his three other jobs.”
Friedman, he said, didn’t know the values of the community, the strengths and weaknesses of the school district.
“Hopefully, the next superintendent that you choose, you pick somebody locally, who’s familiar with the values of this community, who knows how to improve our school district,” Staniec said. “Are we going to start from scratch again? We’ve been how long without a leader? Are we going outside to somebody who is not familiar with us?
“Let’s get real. You made a mistake before. I know you don’t want to admit it, but you made a mistake. Please don’t make another mistake.”
The school board has been winnowing down a list of 60 applicants for the superintendent position and expects to name the final choice at the Sept. 21 meeting. Dr. Scott McCartney is the interim superintendent, hired to work for this summer through the end of December.
Public records requests
Breeden said FIT submitted public records requests to five school districts in three states along with the state of New Jersey.
Saying the school district does not owe Friedman a vacation buyout, he asserted that “…FIT can state with certainty that the former superintendent attempted to manipulate in a premeditated, calculated and deliberate manner his attendance record for personal financial gain that he did not earn.”
According to Breeden, his examination of the records showed Friedman was out of the district at least 60 days (12 work weeks) during his one-year tenure, did not record vacation time — including a seven-day family trip — into the district’s attendance record-keeping system, failed to record times he was out of the district working one of his three part-time jobs and showed up late to work.
Breeden used examples of records from the district from September of last year and June of this year. Friedman’s arrival times included Sept. 7 – 12:29 p.m., Sept. 8 – 1:01 p.m., Sept. 9 – 12:29 p.m., Sept. 12 – 9:17 a.m., Sept. 13 – 10:01 a.m., Sept. 14- 1:34 p.m., Sept. 15 – 12:02 p.m. and Sept. 16 – 10:15 p.m.
Breeden said it was shameful that over his first 11 days of the new school year, he was at work after noon five times.
“This type of attendance record is shameful and demonstrates a total lack of commitment to his job and deception to the Ocean City school community,” Breeden wrote in a letter to the board Aug. 15.
He said showing up late put the burden on other administrators at the start of the school year.
Breeden also has records showing Friedman arriving late at the end of his tenure, taking off a half-day in his penultimate day of work and not working on his final day in June.
He added that contractually, Friedman was due his buyout check within 60 days of leaving the district June 30, but that the former superintendent was not owed a buyout and, if anything, owed the district. Breeden told that to the board Aug. 24 and had said the same thing at the prior meeting and in letters to board President Chris Halliday.
He also said the board leadership bore responsibility as well.
“FIT’s position regarding the former school superintendent’s buyout vacation check has not changed and, if anything, has solidified as a result of reviewing the times he arrived late for work, which frankly are disgraceful for a leader,” Breeden told the board. “A vacation buyout check, in any amount, would be an insult to the district taxpayer, staff that actually showed up to work on time, and to the Ocean City school community in which he utterly failed for his lack of leadership, commitment and most importantly, honesty.”
In a previous interview when FIT criticized the former superintendent and the school board’s oversight over his use of professional development time, Friedman told the Sentinel FIT was misrepresenting facts and that everything he had done came with the board’s support and approval.
“They can OPRA 8 million things,” Friedman said of that and other requests the group made at the time, “but if they want to connect dots that aren’t connecting, that’s called lying.”
Asked about the board’s oversight in late May, Halliday told the Sentinel, “It is the primary duty of the board to establish policies and the primary duty of the superintendent to implement and administer those policies. That’s all I’m entitled to say, as it is a personnel matter.”
The school board has a policy of not responding to citizens’ comments made during the public comment section of its board meetings.
On Aug. 28, Breeden filed another OPRA request, this one seeking multiple documents related to an investigation board solicitor Michael Stanton advised FIT about regarding an ongoing investigation into Friedman’s attendance record.
Breeden told the Sentinel the total amount of vacation pay could amount to about $8,700.
Asked last week for comment about FIT’s newest assertions and whether a vacation buyout check was issued, Halliday reiterated that it is a personnel matter and that he cannot comment.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff