The Fullerton School District had the summer off while our attention was diverted to more important matters. Under that cover and with the convenient assistance of closed session, the Board handed a ridiculous $35,000 cash settlement (our money, not theirs) to a previously fired six-figure employee who didn’t like getting terminated.
Lisa Reynoso is an ex-Director of Nutrition Services who presumably neglected her job duties so badly that the district took on the daunting task of actually terminating her employment and replacing her with someone better.
The board had been wanting to fire Ms. Reynoso for years, but the first attempt at some sort of action in 2007 was overturned by the Personnel Commission, a crazy union invention in which a dubious mix of unelected and unaccountable bad-employee sympathizers actually have power above and beyond the school board itself.
So the lunch lady’s tenure was extended by a few years, which was more than enough for her to earn herself another termination by doing something else bad. We don’t know what she did this time, but anyone who’s tried the meatloaf knows that the bar is pretty low in a grade school cafeteria.
Did the board take charge and let her go this time? No. Our spineless representatives took the easy way out and gave her a parting settlement instead. At the taxpayers’ expense, of course.
It’s lost on these unprincipled, short-sighted administrators that handing cash to an ex-employee who doesn’t deserve it only encourages future bad apples to pursue the same jackpot. Shampoo, rinse, repeat, waste money, hope nobody notices.
The scam was ultimately abetted by the spineless “ayes” of board members Bev Berryman, Janny Meyer and Hilda Sugarman in closed session, with Chris Thompson dissenting.
