AUBURN – School Committee Chairman David Das, along with two members of the board, Wednesday night defended paying former Auburn Superintendent Barbara Eretzian $45,000 for 60 days of work.

Member Lane Feldman said the board members made the best decision they could last year, and “I stand by it.” Fellow member Bonnie Hayes defended Eretzian’s value and pay, saying Auburn taxpayers are getting a “good deal.”

Das opened the meeting by taking issue with a Jan. 10 Sun Journal editorial criticizing the amount of money paid to Eretzian for consulting. The editorial said her pay worked out to $750 a day, was “beyond excessive” and “beyond ridiculous.” Eretzian may be valuable, “but there is no justification for this fee when Auburn is cutting teacher positions. No justification at all,” the editorial read.

Das said the decision to hire Eretzian as a consultant was made in public. He provided copies of a budget workshop from last year, in which a sundry account had three lines: one for $45,000, another for $36,218, another for $22,432. The $45,000 was for Eretzian, though that was not noted in the workshop draft.

In the budget document given to the Auburn City Council in April, on the bottom of Page 26, it says the sundry account includes funds for negotiated contacts and “contracted consultation services for the new superintendent.”

“Once again, it’s out in the open,” Das said, referring to the budget given to the council. “It’s not as the Sun Journal suggested, buried in the budget.”

Das also provided minutes from a May School Committee meeting in which City Councilor Raymond Berube asked what the sundry account money was being used for. According to the minutes, Das answered that the money was for consulting services for Eretzian and contract negotiations with administrators.

The school board chairman said Wednesday he distributed the documents to illustrate that Eretzian’s consulting fee was openly discussed. And if any spending were to buried in the budget, it would not be in the sundry account, Das said. He called that account among the most visible.

Das defended hiring Eretzian as a consultant when she retired as superintendent and Assistant Superintendent Tom Morrill was named interim superintendent. No one was hired to fill Morrill’s job.

No longer having an assistant superintendent does not mean the work goes away, Das said. Retaining Eretzian’s service was a way to get work by someone “who had no learning curve” issue and “could hit the ground running.”

The decision to hire Eretzian as an consultant instead of filling the assistant superintendent position saved money, Das said. The School Department was spending about $110,300 for an assistant superintendent. By spending $45,000 for a consultant, between $55,000 to $65,000 was saved, he said.

As far as the controversial $45,000 fee for 60 days, Das said the committee agreed on that figure knowing “that there wouldn’t be any task left undone” by Eretzian.

Some of the work she’s done this year, according to Das, includes the pre-K program, K-8 guidance counselors, the day care system in Auburn schools, systemwide enrollment figures, special education, “and the personnel crisis at the Park Avenue School, she played a major role in that” referring to when a music teacher was hired after being arrested on a charge of unlawful sexual touching of a young girl. Superintendent Morrill was the “public face” who handled the crisis, but Eretzian helped manage the problem behind the scenes, Das said.

When newly elected committee member Jason Pawlina asked about the 60 days Eretzian was hired for $45,000, Das replied that the time period is the longest amount the committee could employ her as a consultant. Pawlina also asked what percentage of the job is Eretzian doing. Das said she’s doing “the lion’s share” of the assistant superintendent’s job.

Hayes said taxpayers are getting their money’s worth.

“If you knew Barbara Eretzian, she’s doing 150 percent of the job of what she’s been asked to do, and she’s probably volunteering a lot of her time,” Hayes said. She praised Eretzian, saying she’s committed to Auburn schools and has worked for them for 30 years.

“So $45,000 for 60 days, we’re getting every dollar plus more out of Barbara. It’s a good deal,” Hayes concluded.

Saying he has more questions, City Councilor Ron Potvin, the mayor’s representative on the committee, moved the issue be put on a future agenda for further discussion.

“It’s a burning issue now. People have brought it up,” Potvin said. “We need to take it up. Let’s put it on the agenda for further discussion.”

Educators: Personnel needed

In other business, the committee heard presentations of why elementary school counselors, school resource officers and one high school social workers are needed.

Fairview Elementary School counselor Sue Davis said that in today’s world, children come to school with many problems that keep them from learning, ranging from being victims of sexual abuse to being cyber-bullied to coming from homes with domestic violence and alcohol abuse.

Work that she and others do to help students cope is preventative and keeping them in school, Davis and others said.

Edward Little social worker Barbara Larrabee agreed, saying problems students deal with “scare me a lot.” Examples of problems they have, she said, include relationships, homelessness and drug use. One girl she works with “is a cutter” (she cuts herself on different parts of her body). Another is a boy who’s a heavy drug user trying to quit. Another is a young, pregnant girl whom Larrabee helped through a decision on what to do. The girl decided to get an abortion. Later, “She became pregnant again” and this time kept the baby. “We’re now working on parenting issues.”

The social worker said she works with 200 students, and more than 20 percent of high school’s population are or have been in a crisis.

Talking about the important of administrators, EL Principal James Miller said the existing four high school assistant principals and three middle school administrators (one principal and two deans) are necessary for student success.

The number of grades 7-12 administrators today is eight; in 1973 the number was nine, Miller said. He acknowledged that enrollment numbers have declined, but said society has become more complex, and students have more problems. Home invasions and shootings, for instance, used to be uncommon in Auburn. Now they’re less so, he said.