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In This Issue...
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On the Record: Kathryn Benson Talks about Her Challenges Behind the Scenes at Pajaro Schools, Part I
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On the Record: Kathryn Benson Talks about Her Challenges Behind the Scenes at Pajaro Schools, Part I
By Mary Bryant & Michael Thomas
For most of her career, Kathryn Benson has worked behind the scenes in school districts â€" out of the classroom, at a desk and reporting to a supervisor. By most all accounts, she has done her job of attending to personnel matters more than satisfactorily.
In 2002, Benson was about to retire from the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education where she was a personnel program manager. About the same time, the Pajaro Valley Unified School District was looking for a director of classified personnel in the District’s human resources department, an employee who would support the District’s
Personnel Commission and help ensure that the District adhered to its adopted system of merit rules.
“I had friends that encouraged [me] to apply,” she
said.
At the time, former Superintendent John Casey was still at the District, current Superintendent Mary Anne Mays had yet to be recruited and Benson reported to then-Assistant Superintendent of Personnel Clem Donaldson. She also served a three-member personnel commission. At the time, each commissioner had been serving â€" in a mostly volunteer effort â€" for many years.
Benson said she expected she might retire from Pajaro after a few more years. She liked living in the County, had many friends in the area and was reasonably content. But three years later all would change.
By the end of 2005, the District’s personnel commission would be in disarray with one position open and one commissioner resigning after accusing the other of impropriety. Benson said she was also accused of embezzlement, investigated and threatened. And while she was completely cleared of any wrongdoing and her performance reviews were exemplary, the bad news kept coming.
When she decided she had lived through enough, she applied for another job. It was a job she was qualified for at the San Ramon School District, and in an area she would be happy to move to. Benson said she believed she had successfully managed the interviews and was anticipating being offered the position when instead she was notified that a ranking official in Pajaro had contacted the District and told a San Ramon trustee that Benson was about to be fired. It wasn’t true, but Benson said that at that point truth didn’t matter â€" school business work is based on reputation and hers had be tarnished. San Ramon decided to leave the job open instead of hiring Benson.
When Superintendent Mary Anne Mays heard the news, it was the last straw. She had struggled for more than a year with Board members she said were intent on meddling in District affairs. She submitted her resignation within a week on Mar. 22.
Within days, the Benson story was out. By early April, the Register-Pajaronian had named Benson even though Benson wouldn’t comment for the story and the facts were hazy.
“I was horrified,” she said.
Benson has retained an attorney and an investigator is attempting to put the pieces together for litigation. And now, for the first time, Benson is talking to a reporter, telling her story.
All Turning to Custard
For Benson, her workplace began to unravel with a change on the District’s Personnel Commission in October 2005. Pajaro is one of three districts in the County that maintains a Personnel Commission, and among fewer than a hundred in California. At best, the Commission’s work is obscure, though for a district’s classified staff â€" workers who do not hold teaching credentials, from classroom aides to accounting clerks to maintenance engineers â€" the Commission provides a safety net, an appeals board, and a bastion for the merit rules.
The Commission consists of an appointee from the District Board, one from the Classified School Employees Association (CSEA) and a neutral member, one appointed by the other two. And that, according to Benson, is where the trouble began.
In late 2005, former director of classified personnel Jack Hayes â€"- the man who held Benson’s job before Benson was hired â€"- was appointed to the Commission by the CSEA.
At the time of his appointment, Dr. Jeanne Linsdell was the District’s appointee and Lupe Gill was the neutral. Gill had served more than two decades and Linsdell was in her second term.
“He was rude to Kathryn. He was rude to Lupe,” Linsdell recalled of Hayes’ demeanor. “Later, he became rude and abusive to me.”
Besides having her doctorate in public administration, Linsdell teaches management at San Jose State University. She believed that she understood what was appropriate and what wasn’t. Linsdell said that despite the constant criticism, Benson did her job.
“I don’t know why he was against Kathryn. … He would have a list of things he wanted her to get him from one meeting to the next. And 100 percent of the time she would provide him with the information he needed in a timely manner with a positive attitude. I don’t know how she did it,” she said.
Gill had one year to go on her term.
“Lupe had held that position and done an admirable job for 24 years,” Linsdell said, adding that she believes Hayes intended to replace Gill, the neutral member, at the end of her term.
With four months left to go in the summer of 2005, Gill asked to be reappointed. According to Benson and Linsdell, Hayes refused to discuss the matter. After Gill left in October 2005, Linsdell said Hayes refused to identify his nominee so the two could have a discussion. For four months, she said that Hayes held her off.
Linsdell recommended Mary Ann Gomez, a former PVUSD classified employee and a former CSEA president. Hayes eventually nominated Megan Booth, who serves with Hayes on the County Office of Education’s Personnel Commission and as a board member with the organization he directs, the California School Personnel Commissioner’s Association.
According to Pajaro trustee Evelyn Volpa, she believes Linsdell’s description of Hayes.
“I’ve been to only one personnel commission meeting. … He was rude; he was nasty. He wouldn’t give any reasons for his decision when he was asked,” she said, adding she had never seen a school official act “so unprofessional.”
However, while Volpa, Gill and Linsdell are critical of Hayes, he has his supporters.
“The reason why we endorsed him is because of his knowledge, integrity and honesty. … That is why we endorsed him. Jack follows the rules,” said CSEA’s Judy Fuller. “Jack Hayes has brought a lot of integrity and following the rules to our Personnel Commission.”
Fuller is backed by CSEA Vice President Robin Buttersworth.
“As far as I know, Jack is knowledgeable of the rules and regs of the merit system,” she said. As far as the apparent disarray at the Commission, “They are just going through the process,” Buttersworth added.
A Personnel
Commission of One
For the moment, Hayes is the only member of Pajaro’s Personnel Commission.
After Gill left and several ensuing months of turmoil and battles between Hayes and Linsdell, Hayes took his nomination of Booth to State Superintendent Jack O’Connell, who is allowed to break ties. O’Connell’s office appointed Booth.
Linsdell resigned. She said she was tired of the fight, never got a clear answer to her questions about Hayes’ potential conflict of interest serving as the executive director of Personnel Commissioners’ Association and Hayes’ relationship with trustees Sharon Gray, Rhea DeHart and Sandra Nichols. She said that DeHart attended some of the meetings.
“He went to the board after my job,” Linsdell added.
She said that Hayes told her that District board members wanted to work with him directly, even though Dr. Linsdell was the Board’s appointee.
“All I heard about was how the board president and Rhea were calling him directly,” Linsdell said.
While acknowledging that she had a casual friendship with Hayes and that Hayes had worked on her campaign, President Gray said that she only talked with Hayes once about the Commission and on a matter unrelated to issues debated.
While DeHart acknowledged she attended the Personnel Commission meeting on one occasion, she said she never spoke with Hayes.
Still, with Gill having already left and Linsdell now gone, for a short time â€" about a month â€" the Commission was only Hayes. Even the newly appointed Booth only survived a short time. This month Booth resigned and for the moment the Commission is again just Hayes.
In April, the trustees nominated Gomez, the same former CSEA president who Linsdell had nominated as a neutral. On a split vote Gomez was affirmed with the support of trustees Volpa, DeHart, Karen Osmondson, Doug Keegan and Willie Yahiro. Gray supported former Pajaro administrator Leon Mattingly, who is a friend of Hayes and Gray, and as a result wouldn’t vote for Gomez. Gomez still has to survive a public hearing in late May. At the earliest, she will take office in June and then the process of appointing a neutral will begin once more.
The Investigation of Benson Begins
Linsdell believes that Hayes was going after Benson’s job.
“To me it looked like he was going after her job. … He was so highly critical of her and yet her job performance appraisal was top notch,” Linsdell said. “You don’t treat somebody the way he treated her.”
However, Benson didn’t believe that her job was threatened. Hayes wasn’t her employer, the District was. She had received excellent job performance ratings and she couldn’t be terminated without just cause. But then came all the stuff that Benson didn’t know about.
Benson said that when the investigation of her began in 2005, she didn’t know she was under scrutiny.
According to Benson, she was told that a trustee had asked that an investigation be conducted regarding Benson’s pay â€" the assertion being that Benson had somehow manipulated the system and received pay increases she wasn’t due.
According to Dr. Mays, embezzling in this fashion is impossible. When former Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Donaldson was contacted for this story, he too said that such a notion was unthinkable, giving Benson high praise for her work.
Nonetheless, Mays said the investigation was launched and conducted independently by the District’s legal counsel.
When Benson first agreed to talk with The Post in April, in an interview at the time Superintendent Mays responded to questions about Benson with Benson’s agreement. She affirmed that the investigation was initiated at the request of a trustee.
“There was a question raised and we requested legal counsel conduct a thorough investigation. There was no wrongdoing found [on the part] of any staff members,” Dr. Mays said. “The investigation exonerated all staff.”
According to Mays, trustees received the attorney’s report in closed session and the matter was dropped.
Who was the trustee? Today, Dr. Mays said she can no longer answer questions about Benson. She has been told by the District’s legal counsel not to discuss the matter.
However, Benson said that while one investigation ended, the worst was yet ahead.
[Editor’s Note: The second part of this investigative report will be published in the May 30 edition of The Post.]
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