Citizens group fought severance payout for former superintendent
OCEAN CITY – Local citizens group Fairness In Taxes (FIT) can often leave local government and school officials fit to be tied. The group questions spending and contracts and files scores of Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests to get information generally not proffered by those officials.
That doesn’t regularly make the group a lot of friends in official circles, but last week FIT was feeling vindicated. Its recent effort that combined OPRA requests and being vocal during public comment at Ocean City Board of Education meetings appears to have saved taxpayers some money.
Granted, the sum saved in this latest push isn’t huge, but for FIT, the savings also are a matter of principle and, as the group name implies, fairness.
Dr. Matthew Friedman was the superintendent of schools for the Ocean City district for the 2022-23 school year. He was hired with substantial fanfare after an interim superintendent helmed the district for a year after the retirement of longtime leader Dr. Kathy Taylor. About midway through his first year at the helm he started looking for a new job. He ended up taking a similar position with a school district closer to his Pennsylvania home, leaving only a year into his three-year contract.
What soured FIT members and members of the public was Friedman’s tenure being marked by extensive time out of the district – some 12 weeks of paid leave for professional development – and a lot of late arrivals because of his more than two-hour commute. His quick departure also fueled assertions he was only using Ocean City as a stepping stone.
During the summer, FIT began arguing that Friedman wasn’t entitled to 11 unused vacation days, which he requested pay for as part of his severance. That worked out to $8,038.47, or $730.77 per day, according to the group.
Because of the OPRA requests documenting FIT’s concerns, the group was successful in getting the school board to investigate Friedman’s attendance and look into how much vacation time was owed.
Although asked about the matter on two different occasions, school board President Chris Halliday said he could not answer questions from the Sentinel about Friedman’s severance because it was a personnel matter.
A FIT OPRA request, however, did seem to answer the question.
The group was able to secure a copy of the check from the Ocean City Board of Education to Friedman for the payroll ended Aug. 30. It showed a “vacation buyback” of $1,461.54.
In a message to the Sentinel, FIT President David Breeden said the value of the check worked out to two days’ worth of pay.
“While FIT does not have details of the investigation, it is evident that it determined that Dr. Friedman was not entitled to nine (9) vacation days that he submitted for payment,” Breeden said.
“As a result of FIT’s efforts, it saved the district taxpayer $6,576.93, that Dr. Friedman did not earn or was entitled to receive.”
Breeden said FIT will submit additional OPRA requests to get details of the investigation and find out the cost of investigation.
“Based on the findings of the attendance investigation along with his overall mismanagement of the district during his brief tenure, Dr. Friedman no longer has any credibility and any of his statements regarding his work performance in Ocean City should be suspect,” Breeden said. “FIT’s work has exposed misconduct on the part of Dr. Friedman. Even when FIT notified the board leadership of our concerns, they failed to hold Dr. Friedman accountable. Board leadership took action only after FIT provided an overwhelming amount of evidence to support our claim of attendance improprieties committed by Dr. Friedman in order to receive financial gain that he did not earn.”
After FIT raised questions about his attendance record and working part-time for three other jobs during his tenure in the Ocean City district, Friedman told the Sentinel in the spring that the group was misrepresenting facts about him.
FIT said it is now working to document what it calls Friedman’s “mismanagement of the district” and will present that publicly when appropriate.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff