Broward Schools Settle with Construction Whistleblower
From the Broward Teacher’s Union:
With Broward schools’ construction department already facing a federal corruption probe, school board members finally decided today to cut their losses and settle with federal whistleblower Rebecca Blackwood. The agreement will award Blackwood $60,000 in back pay and $150,000 in legal fees, rescind her termination and allow her to retire with her full pension.
Blackwood alerted county and state officials to the district’s unsafe construction practices when serving as a senior supervisor in the school system’s now infamous facilities and construction department in 2005. BTU President Pat Santeramo said union officials believed all along that district officials charged Blackwood in order to punish her for reporting unsafe construction practices and building code violations.
Despite losing at each step of the grievance, arbitration and legal process, district officials and even some school board members appeared so angered by Blackwood’s efforts to alert the public that they refused to abide by the order of a state administrative law judge in 2007 and dismissed their complaint against Blackwood. Officials and school board members took their wrath out on Blackwood even further by terminating her just months before she could retire despite an order by Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal in January of 2009 that they return Blackwood to her position.
“With the district’s facilities and construction department in the middle of a federal corruption probe, I am sure the back pay and pension that Becky Blackwood will receive is only icing on the cake for her,” Santeramo said. “Despite Superintendent Jim Notter’s claims of a district financial crisis and the union’s demands that he drop this case long ago, the Becky Blackwood settlement is yet another example of officials throwing nearly half a million tax dollars out the door.”
While union officials are pleased to recover $150,000 in legal fees for the representation provided to Blackwood, district claims that the settlement will cost employees and students only $217,500 is blatantly false. District officials squandered at least an equal amount of tax dollars on their own legal costs in pursuing their vendetta against her.
In keeping with the Superintendent Jim Notter’s tradition of holding no one accountable for wasting district resources, the school system’s top legal counsel Edward Marko had his own contract extended for one year today at a cost to taxpayers of over $200,000. Marko orchestrated the legal wrangling and attack on Blackwood.
After Blackwood left the district, she was quickly hired to teach for a Broward county technical college.
Related posts:
- Broward teacher’s union entering mediation with Broward schools
- Broward Teacher’s Union reject negotiations agreement
- Broward Public Schools declares impasse in union negotiations
- Broward schools reaches agreement with union on effective teacher program
- Teachers’ union officials claim school officials allegedly violating employees’ Constitutional rights
Short URL: http://browardnetonline.com/?p=4158
Posted by Andrea Freygang
on Nov 10 2009. Filed under Broward County, Fort Lauderdale, Local news, Schools.
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