Board votes to fire St. Joseph School District superintendent
February 21, 2015
By Sam Zeff
After almost a year of audits, investigations by the FBI and a federal grand jury, and countless damaging stories in the media, the superintendent of Missouri's St. Joseph School District has been fired.
The school board met in closed session on February 20, 2015, and 16 hours later the district announced that Dr. Fred Czerwonka was being terminated.
Czerwonka was ousted almost two years to the day after he signed his contract with the 16th-largest school district in Missouri, which serves approximately 11,000 students.
Board votes unanimously to terminate
The district said in a statement that the executive session vote was 6-0 to fire Czerwonka. Dan Colgan, the former board president and district superintendent, was absent.
The 6-0 vote is significant because the school board has been bitterly divided for the past year over Czerwonka’s controversial tenure.
Czerwonka’s firing also came just four days after Missouri State Auditor Thomas Schweich released a scathing report on the district’s finances, policies and procedures.
The report criticized the district for no-bid contracts, lack of control of overtime and numerous violations of the Missouri Sunshine Act.
But the most damaging finding concerned the district’s now-infamous stipend program.
The audit discovered $25 million in secret payments, mostly to administrators, in the past eight years. It suggested that up to $40 million in stipends were handed out going back to 2000.
Exit the Candy Man
Czerwonka’s tenure began to unravel last spring when it was discovered that he handed out $5,000 stipends to 54 administrators without board approval.
Those stipends earned him a nickname: The Candy Man.
Sources say the district already has a list of potential candidates for interim superintendent when Czerwonka exits. The board previously appointed Jake Long, the district's director of transportation and security, as the temporary acting superintendent. Czerwonka's $190,000 contract says the district must give him 90-day notice before firing him for cause, and he can request a hearing before the board.
Czerwonka and Chief Operating Officer Rick Hartigan were placed on administrative leave on January 22, 2015, after the board reviewed a draft of the audit.
The district said no additional personnel actions were taken by the board in its closed session.
Sam Zeff covers education for KCUR in Kansas City, Missouri. He's won a National News Emmy for investigative reporting, four National Headliner Awards and four Edward R. Murrow awards. Zeff has managed newsrooms in Minneapolis, St. Louis and Kansas City. He was educated at the University of Kansas.
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