Burnsville Schools Scolded for Secrecy

The public records agency in Minnesota is scolding the officials of Burnsville, Eagan, and Savage schools because of their failure to release records that are meant to be public, which had to do with a severance payment of $254,814 given to one of the former employees of the school district. It is believed that they hid this information as a way of basically hiding the complaints that had been made against some of the local officials so that the general public would not find out about these problems that were going on behind closed doors.

The scolding of the schools took place earlier this week, especially after the community members were highly upset and made sure that the school district knew of it. When community members found out about the large payout that was given to the former human resource director of Burnsville, Tania Z. Chance, and the fact that it was pushed under the rug, they were understandably upset and caused some serious outrage. They wanted to find out why the school district did not make this information public in the first place. The Burnsville schools apparently paid Chance this amount of money after having asked her to end her employment as the human resources director after only working within the position for half a year, even though she had first signed a contract when receiving her position, which was supposed to last for two years. This would mean that she was leaving her position after only 6 months, with 18 months left from her contract.

The public records agency was able to find out that the district seemed to have purposely omitted some of the information between what went on with Chance, although that information is supposed to be made public and community members have a right to know about it. In the meantime, the Burnsville school district released their own statement, in which they defend all of their decisions, from the payout given to Chance and for withholding certain information from the general public. The statement claims that the school district simply could not afford to release certain information that could end up being private because then it could have cost them in the long run, which is something they would not be able to afford, as it could have cost thousands of dollars.

School officials are not releasing any information about it either, as they are following the advice that was given to them by their attorneys. However, the district attorney, Maggie Wallner, is requesting to find out more information and details. The agency commissioner, Spencer Cronk, said that the district should not have censored letters that came from the Superintendent, Randall Clegg.