Pay deal angers district parents

As the Philadelphia School District reeled from the revelation this spring of a huge budget deficit, its chief financial officer and budget overseer quietly resigned.

But Folasade Olanipekun-Lewis walked out the door with a deal when she left May 31. The district agreed to pay her at full salary - $180,000 annually - for an additional nine months, through March 1, 2008.

She had worked for the district for only a little over two years and had been on maternity leave for a time. There was no contract requiring her to receive a severance package, officials confirmed.

Also under the agreement, Olanipekun-Lewis will get a year of medical benefits through June 1, 2008, and she was paid for unused vacation time - an amount the district didn't provide yesterday.

The district at first refused to release the terms of the severance agreement, citing confidentiality, but a day later it provided the details after The Inquirer filed a request under the state's Right to Know law.

The arrangement was authorized by departing School Reform Commission Chairman James Nevels and not approved by the full five-member commission, district officials said yesterday. In fact, two other commissioners reached for comment - James Gallagher and Martin Bednarek - said they were not aware of the arrangement.

"If there was a deal cut, that's news to me," Bednarek said.

"It's the prerogative of the chair," said Cecilia Cummings, the district's senior vice president of communications and community relations.

Through a spokeswoman Nevels declined to comment, calling it a personnel issue. Olanipekun-Lewis, a former Philadelphia city treasurer who was appointed to the school post in April 2005, did not return a call seeking comment.

Neither did incoming Commission Chairman Sandra Dungee Glenn.

News of the arrangement outraged some district parents, who have been watching nervously as the district pares its $2.18 billion budget, cutting money for disciplinary schools, axing supplementary art programs, and returning to the controversial process of "leveling," which moves teachers among schools based on enrollment trends well after the start of the school year.

On top of last year's money woes, the district passed a budget this spring that turned out to have an $80 million hole. Cuts and new funding narrowed the gap but the district must still trim $20 million.

When he learned of the agreement, Greg Wade, president of the Home and School Council, the district parents group, said, "You've got to be kidding me. That's bad. That's really bad, and especially with all the problems we're having. That's absolutely wrong. Quite frankly, I blame her for a lot of the problems we have right now," he said of Olanipekun-Lewis. "How could they just sign off on that when we're struggling just to get books in our classrooms?"

Parents questioned rewarding Olanipekun-Lewis with a severance package in the face of budget problems.

"If that is true, I would find that deplorable," said Gerald Wright, parent of two children at John S. Jenks School and a member of Parents United for Public Education. "Someone should be held accountable for the $73 million deficit that showed up last October. If not the chief financial officer, if not Paul Vallas, if not the SRC, then who?

"If she's going to get a lucrative severance package, then the district is saying that our kids don't matter . . . we're going to be paying for this for years to come."

The trouble started in October when the district, under former chief executive Paul Vallas, had a $73 million deficit. Olanipekun-Lewis was the chief financial officer and public blame for the deficit was shifted from Vallas to her and then to the commission, with no one ever saying who was responsible.

Asked why the severance package was authorized, Cummings gave the following statement: "The thinking was that [Olanipekun-Lewis] had performed at the top level of our administration, but unlike her counterparts, she was without a contract. . . . The district felt that the settlement was fair and that it did not require a School Reform Commission vote."

Gallagher declined to comment on his view of the severance package.

"I'm going to have to go back in there and talk to people to find out why they did what they did," he said.

But he added that Olanipekun-Lewis "was a hardworking, good person and did her best to serve the students of Philadelphia."

Bednarek said he recalled only that commissioners were told Olanipekun-Lewis was leaving to pursue other interests and that she would collect unused vacation time. "That was it," he said.

"If it's true it's disturbing," he said, adding that he also would look into it.

District general counsel Sherry Swirsky had refused to release the severance terms on Monday, citing a "confidentiality agreement between both parties."

But district interim Chief Executive Officer Tom Brady intervened after The Inquirer made a formal Right to Know request and asked Swirsky "to check again" whether the material could be released, Cummings said.

"Upon second review, the general counsel's office deemed that this was something to go into the public domain," Cummings said.

The district released the terms yesterday afternoon.

Olanipekun-Lewis came to the school post from Birmingham, Ala., where she had been city director of finance. Before that she was Philadelphia treasurer from April 2000 to January 2002 and director of finance for the Philadelphia Parking Authority from October 1998 to April 2000.

The district paid Vallas nearly $180,000 in unused vacation and sick time, deferred salary, and retention pay when he left in June to head the New Orleans school district.