Thursday, April 26, 2007

Expensive Executive: Big Law Suits

Big Law suits

According to published reports, Charles Taylor's treatment of employees have resulted in lawsuits that have proved costly.

For example as chancellor in Spokane he demoted a former president (Diana van der Ploeg) after a public disagreement and she filed suit which was settled out of court in the amount of $180,000 in favor of the plaintiff, from public funds, not from his own pocket. A third of that settlement had to be paid by the college, the rest was paid by the state.

All told, the Community Colleges of Spokane reportedly paid out nearly half a million dollars to settle suits. CCS spent nearly $192,620 from its budget to address complaints from former and current employees, including two administrators. Another $255,000 was taken from the state’s tort claim fund.

Except for Tad Conrad, CCS Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance, who was with CCS for 28 years, the rest of CCS’ top administrators were recent hires. Ron LaFayette and Jennifer Roseman, both over age 40, filed age discrimination claims against Charles Taylor and CCS. Roseman received a contract buyout and a settlement of $97,000. LaFayette, who is now President of North Seattle Community College, received $60,000 for dropping his age discrimination claim.

Another five who filed complaints or lawsuits against CCS but later settled are: Laverne Foxley (unlawful retaliation claim, $130,000); John Larue (age discrimination claims, $11,500); Colletta Young (age discrimination claims, $4,120); William Rambo (alleged violation of civil rights, $125,000); and Jill Swanson, part-time faculty, discrimination claims, $20,000).


IN OUR NEXT INSTALLMENT IN THIS SERIES: Bad Fiscal Managment

Sources for this article include CCS correspondents (what goes around comes around--aint email great!) and published news articals (take a look at The Spokesman-Review on September 30, 2001, Settlements Drain CCS, Taxpayers and Community College Week on March 18, 2002, Wash. College, former president settle suit) .

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh man this is worse than I heard. I mean when they hired him we heard some stories about this kind of thing. But we were told that he was the new broom that slept the place clean that they had dead wood that needed to be cleared out.

And how many TNCC employees have left in the past two years? How many lawsuits?

Anonymous said...

What were the board and Glen Dubois thinking when they hired this guy?

Anonymous said...

I'm glad I'm not an administrator.

Of course, it doesn't look like he's much better to faculty.

So sometimes paranoia is an intelligent alternative.

I'm dreading the next installment of this series.

Thanks Flagstiffed (I think).

Anonymous said...

Hve we had employment discrimination law suits at TNCC? Is that where the moneys gone?

What is the college board doing?

Flagstiffed said...

Arbie and everybody, sources close to the administration have not reported that any employment litigation payouts have been made at this time.

So your budget problms probly have another cause.

Anonymous said...

This is deja view all over again for us. Sad thing is that money is only half the cost. The other half is in peoples' lives.

Anonymous said...

Oh boy, Sleeping Agin in Spokane got that right. Glad Taylor wasn't here very long before OUR problem became YOUR problem.

Anonymous said...

The faculty senate apparently issued a "stern rebuke" or some such to the admininstration this week, but I'm not sure that it was anything more than blowing smoke out their butts.

Anonymous said...

The state fraud, waste, abuse hotline has been contacted.