Erb Got Illegal Raise? (Where There's Smoke...)

It appears Greg Donovan and the "old board" wanted to give Jack Erb a gift before Donovan left the board, but after the voters unceremoniously dumped him in favor of Diane Douglas. Everything they did might have even been legal in and of itself. There was only one problem...they didn't bother to do it in a public meeting.

As of the beginning of December 2004, Erb's base salary was $125,000, with several other monetary "perks" thrown in. At the December 14, 2004 board meeting the final agenda item (minutes here) was listed as considering extending the superintendent's contract. So far, so good. The board went into executive session (for about 2-3 minutes, tops) and then came out and voted to extend Erb's contract until 6/30/07. If that was all they actually had done, that would have been fine, too. But it wasn't!

The actual contract addendum the board and Dr. Erb signed did three other things:

1. Increased his base salary by $5,000
2. Gave him an additional $1,500 stipend for having his doctorate degree
3. Allowed him to take a retirement buyout package "at any time" as agreed to by the board in place at the time he decided to retire

None of those three things were ever mentioned in public! They weren't on an agenda. They weren't discussed in the board meeting. They weren't part of the motion Pat Galbraith made and, most importantly, there was NEVER A PUBLIC VOTE! Listen for yourself. The actual motion and vote is in the last 20 seconds of the clip.

So far, Jack Erb has been paid at least $12,000 (that we know of) that was never legally approved in a public meeting. That doesn't include the fact that his AZ state retirement is probably inflated by this improper raise, as well. That means he'll get about $4,000 extra every year for the rest of his life!

I can only hope the proper authorities look into this ASAP. This was too carefully orchestrated to have been a simple oversight. How many other "mistakes" would they would find?

Where there's smoke...