Latest news with #employmentstatus
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
EPISD board to take up superintendent's status — again
EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — After a five-hour marathon meeting to discuss the employment status of Superintendent Diana Sayavedra, the El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees is scheduled to take up the topic again in a special meeting on Tuesday, June 3. The meeting will be held at 4 p.m. Tuesday at the EPISD Administration Building, 1014 N. Stanton St. The agenda for the meeting said they will consult with legal counsel concerning issues relating to the superintendent's duties, responsibilities and employment status. Any action will be taken in public session either at this meeting or at a future meeting, the agenda said. Possible actions listed included: discussion and action to approve a voluntary separation agreement with the superintendent; discussion and action on the superintendent's duties, responsibilities and employment status; and discussion and action to appoint an interim superintendent. It is not clear if there are enough votes to end Sayavedra's tenure as superintendent. El Paso ISD board takes no action on superintendent after marathon meeting During an emotionally charged meeting on May 27, the board discussed Sayavedra's employment status and possible future with the district for five hours, before adjourning and not taking action shortly after 10:30 p.m. Speaker after speaker defended Sayavedra, who has led the district since January 2022 and received a five-year contract extension last year. Some also warned that such a move would destabilize the district and force it to spend money on a buyout. The district is estimating that it is facing a $17 million shortfall for the 2025-26 school year. After hearing public comment, the board went into executive session for about two hours, came back out and heard more public comment. Briefly, the board discussed the superintendent in public session and that's when sparks flew among the board. Trustee Daniel Call said that new Board President Leah Hanany was leading the effort to oust Sayavedra 'not because of poor performance or scandal, but because she wouldn't bend the knee' to Hanany. Call also said that during the board's last search for a superintendent, Hanany advocated for a candidate who was a 'crony' and that is what she was seeking to do again, if she was successful in ousting Sayavedra. Hanany made a brief statement before adjourning the meeting without the board taking any action. Hanany accused Call of lying and violating a non-disclosure agreement from the superintendent search. She said she would not violate that same agreement and said that made defending herself impossible. Also, during the past week, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) confirmed that a complaint had been filed against Hanany. TEA: Complaint filed against EPISD board president 'TEA can confirm that a complaint has been filed and is currently under review. As is the case for all complaints submitted to the agency, the complaint is reviewed to determine what next steps, if any, are necessary,' reads part of TEA's statement. All this comes after the shape of the EPISD board was drastically altered after the May 3 school board election. Two incumbents — Israel Irrobali and Isabel Hernandez — were defeated for re-election. Newcomers Mindy Sutton and Robert Osterland were elected in their place. Also, Hanany and fellow incumbent Jack Loveridge were elected to new terms. Loveridge, who had been appointed to his seat after Josh Acevedo was elected to the City Council, was elected to a term in his own right. When the new board met for the first time, Hanany was elected the new board president and Loveridge as vice president. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Irish Times
27-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
RTÉ pays out €4m tied to misclassification of some staff as self-employed
RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst is expected to tell a Dáil committee on Wednesday that the broadcaster has to date handed over more than €4 million in unpaid social welfare contributions related to the misclassification of some workers in the organisation as self-employed contractors. The former BBC News editor will update the Committee on the Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport on a range of issues at the broadcaster, including a process to settle the employment status of around 700 workers. According to a copy of his opening remarks seen by The Irish Times, Mr Bakhurst is expected to say that RTÉ has made payments of €1.1 million to the Revenue Commissioners to date relating to an audit of its finances that began last year. In the appendix to his remarks submitted ahead of Wednesday's meeting, RTÉ noted a €3.2 million settlement to the Department of Social Protection relating to its review of some 655 alleged cases of Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI) misclassification at the broadcaster. READ MORE [ RTÉ confirms €3.6m write down on partly abandoned IT project Opens in new window ] Mr Bakhurst is expected to tell the committee that the department has reviewed 82 per cent of the cases and found that 60 per cent, or 388, were correctly classified as contractors. Some 124 cases, or 18 per cent of the total, remain outstanding, according to the documents submitted to the committee. In recent years, RTÉ set aside some €22.6 million as a provision to cover the cost of potential PRSI settlements and penalties. The total provision had fallen to just €21 million at the end of April, according to the documents. Mr Bakhurst is also expected to tell the committee that any move to completely abandon a troubled IT project and switch to a new supplier in the middle of its delivery would have cost the broadcaster at least €3 million. [ RTÉ spends nearly €75,000 appealing findings against broadcaster in bogus self-employment cases Opens in new window ] RTÉ ultimately took a €3.7 million financial hit on the partially abandoned project to replace its legacy finance and human resources system. The broadcaster said at the time that the impairments were noted in its annual accounts during the years 2020 to 2023. Mr Bakhurst said at the time that he was not aware of the write-down until March, when details were shared with media minister Patrick O'Donovan as part of a wider review of capital projects, initiated after the controversy over the Arts Council's spending on a botched IT project. Mr Bakhurst will reiterate to the committee that the project was an 'outlier' in a 'much larger portfolio' of capital projects. The review found that the 'total variance' from the initial budget for 39 large-scale projects undertaken by RTÉ since 2020 was less than €500 million, Mr Bakhurst is expected to say. The committee will also hear that 'any attempt to abandon the project' or switch to the runner-up supplier in the procurement process, 'would have immediately incurred an extra cost of at least €3 million'. Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland programme on Tuesday, media committee chairman and Labour Party TD Alan Kelly said some of the focus of Wednesday's session will be on the department because of the 'history' of similar issues at other bodies like the Arts Council. While he said the writedowns were noted in RTÉ's accounts, it was difficult to 'comprehend' the scale of the costs 'if you see it written off over a number of years'. Mr Kelly said the broadcaster may not have attempted to hide the issue, 'but certainly, there wasn't an attempt to make it very public'.
