As a misconduct investigation against him continues, a Washington superintendent was fired in a move seen as fiscally responsible by the school board.
Mike Merlino was previously placed on paid leave as an investigation into whether or not he abused his power in an attempt to inappropriately promote his girlfriend. However, the Evergreen School Board voted to fire him immediately and without cause. As a result, he will receive around $306,000 under the provisions of his current contract. Although they will be paying him a hefty sum of cash, this move was seen as a way for the district to save money during the investigation.
"It's always very disturbing to have a no-cause stipulation and pay out somebody when you feel like they shouldn't be here, but we recognized this years ago that that can be very expensive," said board president Victoria Bradford. "Trying to be fiscally responsible is something that we want to be, because we do have a fiduciary responsibility to our community and we want to protect that as much as we can."
Merlino is accused of using his abilities as superintendent to attempt to give his girlfriend, who has not been identified, an unfair promotion within the district. Local newspaper The Columbianobtained an email that claimed that administrators who pushed back against the promotion were "retaliated" against.
Examples given in the email include being "disinvited/not invited to attend meetings where HR matters were discussed" and being "alienated, marginalized, and unfairly blamed by him for certain matters." He has denied these and other allegations made against him.
Moreover, the document provided to The Columbian said that when the board and legal department disapproved of the girlfriend's promotion, she broke up with him "on the spot."
Tyler Firkins, an attorney representing Merlino, released a statement on his client's behalf saying Merlino looks forward to "proving the absolute falsity of the allegation that his conduct was 'egregious,' or inappropriate such that the district has cause to discharge him."
On December 7, board member Rachael Rogers shared a confirmation of the list of complaints and results of the investigation via email from Rick Kaiser, a lawyer based in Bellevue who had been leading the investigation.
Merlino was placed on paid leave the following day.
The email was provided to The Columbian in response to a public records request.
Other complaints alleged that Merlino had threatened to fire multiple employees he personally deemed weren't "team players," including the aforementioned administrative employee.
In another incident, the district hired an investigator to look into a complaint against Merlino over a hire he had made. Merlino allegedly attempted to terminate that investigator, and then sought independent counsel—not the district's lawyer—to aid in terminating the investigator, the document said.
Merlino was interviewed twice for the investigation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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