Tom Giffey Editorial: Aug. 10th

Updated: 8/10/2008 11:37:01 PM
Suspension likely best step in Klaus fiasco
The issue: The Eau Claire school board suspends former Superintendent Bill Klaus without pay.
Our view: The decision won't please everyone, but it's the best of a series of bad options to deal with Klaus' unethical actions.

Call it what you will - Klausgate, Backdategate, the Mess at 500 Main St. - but it looks like the controversy that has embroiled Eau Claire school district leaders for months is over. At least for a year. Maybe.

Eau Claire school district residents won't soon forget former Superintendent Bill Klaus' unethical attempt to backdate his contract to gain access to his retirement stipend before he actually retired. Nor will they forget the school board's long, bungled and too-secretive response. However, the board's decision Friday to suspend Klaus without pay - and not to buy out his contract - is a first step in repairing its tattered image with an angry community.

To recap: In February 2007, the board OK'd a deal to allow Klaus to step down as superintendent and become principal of Northstar Middle School. Later that summer, at Klaus' behest, former school board President Carol Olson signed a backdated memo stating Klaus could collect his retirement stipend beginning Aug. 1, 2007. The board balked when it learned of this, but refused to talk openly about the matter for months. After a Leader-Telegram investigation revealed the situation in April, public furor forced the district to put Klaus on paid leave and led to a police investigation (though no criminal charges were filed).

On Friday, the Eau Claire school board voted to suspend Klaus without pay until June 15. We're hesitant to predict a definitive end to the furor over Klaus' contract because the next move is his. Klaus will be old enough next year to start getting payments from his $267,209 retirement stipend, and hopefully he'll be wise enough to take the hint and retire, even though his contract with the district originally ran through June 30, 2012.

But things may not be that easy: The embattled school leader's attorney promised to sue the district if Klaus' dismissal deal didn't include the stipend and the pay he'd get under the remaining four years of his contract, a total of more than $800,000.

Nevertheless, the decision the school board made Friday may make a lawsuit less likely to succeed, which would make it one of the best decisions the board has made during this sordid saga. Under Klaus' contract, the board can suspend him, as long as it doesn't do so in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner; firing him requires "just cause" and a more complex process.

Contrary to the angry sentiments of some readers, who pilloried the board's decision on the Leader-Telegram's Web page as soon as it was announced, it's hard to imagine taxpayers getting a better - or more just - deal at this point. As satisfied as some would be to see Klaus ridden out of town on a rail, firing him outright and denying him his retirement benefit would be much more likely to prompt a costly lawsuit, which the district wouldn't necessarily win. Cutting him loose as cheaply as possibly is probably the best of a number of bad options.

- Aug. 10th