ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 13, 1995 TAG: 9512130063
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Above
THE FORMER SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT'S $35,000 fee won't be paid until he produces a report that passes muster.
Frank Tota still hasn't made the grade.
The former Roanoke school superintendent still hasn't provided a report on magnet school funding that is acceptable to the School Board - and until he does, he's not going to get his full $35,000 consulting fee this year.
We do not feel he has met the requirements of his [early retirement] contract," said board Chairman Nelson Harris.
The board has offered to pay Tota one-third of his fee for his work so far this year.
But Tota won't get the rest unless he provides a better report and records on the time he has spent on the consultant work, Harris said Tuesday. The board has sent Tota a letter advising him of its decision and asking for the records.
Tota, reached in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., where he is school superintendent, said he might go to court to collect the rest of his fee.
"I felt the letter was insulting," Tota said. "It sounds like politics as usual in Roanoke."
The board wants the former superintendent to provide dates and names of people at foundations and organizations whom he contacted about funding for magnet schools.
The board asked Tota to do the report because it expects federal money for the magnet school program to be reduced.
"We wanted him to research foundation money and other sources of funding so we wouldn't have to absorb all of the magnet school costs in our local budget," Harris said.
Tota submitted an 18-page handwritten report in May, but the board sent it back and told him it would have to be typed.
Tota said Tuesday he was surprised that the board complained that the report was handwritten because it didn't object to last year's report, which also was handwritten. Harris was not chairmanthen. Tota received the full $35,000 a year ago.
When this year's handwritten report arrived, Harris said.
The report was required under Tota's seven-year contract, which calls for him to perform professional services of an advisory nature for 20 days a year for $35,000. The fee is based on 35 percent of Tota's salary when he retired in 1993.
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