School District Watchdog Files Complaint With Inspector General
Dr. Larry Murray
WAS SCHOOL PRINCIPAL CHRISTINA MCPHERSON’s SALARY HIKE A VIOLATION OF STATE LAW?
On Sunday, October 6, 2013, I filed a complaint with the Inspector General’s Office of the State Department of Education. The subject of the complaint is the procedure whereby Ms. Christina McPherson, Director of Assessment & Accountability and principal at Poinciana School was given a substantial salary increase.
As you may know, when I recently filed suit against the School District for failing to comply with three Public Records Requests (PRR’s), two PRR’s concerned the salary and supplements, if any, that Ms. McPherson was receiving. After I received the documents from the District, someone in the media asked if I had found a “smoking gun”. My initial response was “No”, though that proved to be premature.
Because of information provided to me by several sources, I went back to the School Board meeting, the minutes and video, of August 15, 2013. That was the meeting at which Superintendent Porter announced that he was asking Ms. McPherson to take on the additional responsibility of being principal at Poinciana School. I was curious as to what was said regarding her salary and the complaint outlines what I found.
When I discovered that Ms. McPherson might have inappropriately, perhaps illegally, been given a substantial salary increase after Superintendent Porter told the Board that he would not be doing that, I assessed my options as how best to address the issue.
Among other things I considered was whether some sort of favoritism was involved. Did anyone else receive a salary increase without the knowledge or approval of the Board? In acting as he did, was Superintendent Porter guilty of a criminal act? Because of these questions and others, I thought that a thorough investigation was called for and that it would be best for that investigation to be conducted by someone or an agency outside of Monroe County. Thus I filed my complaint with the Department of Education in Tallahassee.
Dr. Larry Murray
Fiscal Watchdog and Citizen Advocate