September 04, 2008
Here's $160,000. Now go away.
Residents of the East Greenbush Central School District in Rensselaer County may never know why Superintendent Dr. Rebecca Furlong was shown the door last December after four months on the job. However, they now can learn that her severance package was far richer than the district publicly revealed.
The school board was willing to pay Furlong the equivalent of her annual salary of $160,000 plus benefits in 2008 if she would quietly leave her job. The severance deal is posted on the contracts section of www.SeeThroughNY.net along with the three-year contract she signed in June 2007.
On December 18, 2007, Board President JoAnn Hart said Furlong was taking a leave of absence for "personal reasons". In January, the board acknowledged the leave was related to "changes in thinking regarding the goals and priorities established by the district".
However, judging from coverage by local papers (Troy Record, Albany Times Union and the Independent), the district didn't tell the whole story about Furlong's severance package. It suggested she would receive her pro-rated salary ($80,000) during a six-month leave of absence, but would get nothing beyond that.
It failed to say it agreed to pay Furlong another $80,000 through December 31, 2008 if she didn't find a job paying at least $120,000 a year by then. So East Greenbush taxpayers have more reason than they might have expected to hope she finds a good, new job soon, if she hasn't already.
Since January, in addition to paying Furlong, East Greenbush has being paying her successor Dr. Angella M. Guptill.
According to severance deal, Furlong and the board agreed not to "express any statements or opinions disparaging each other". The board agreed to put "a letter of recommendation" in her personnel folder, presumably for another school district where she might seek a superintendent job.
In an editorial, the Troy Record comments on "the mystery surrounding her departure".
Nobody knows why she left or why she is still getting paid .... "The Board of Education and Dr. Furlong depart on amicable terms," according to the statement. Paying someone for not working is indeed one way to remain amicable.
Furlong came to East Greenbush from the Unatego Central School District in Otego, where she left two years into a three-year contract.
One mystery I can solve: How did the Empire Center get a copy of Furlong's severance agreement posted on www.SeeThroughNY.net ? By filing a Freedom of Information Law request.
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