RIVERHEAD, N.Y. – Laurie Downs isn’t afraid to tell it like it is.
The Riverhead resident and one-time school board candidate made that abundantly clear at a recent board meeting, where she chastised district leaders for an absurd buyout for former assistant superintendent Joe Ogeka.
The Riverhead resident and one-time school board candidate made that abundantly clear at a recent board meeting, where she chastised district leaders for an absurd buyout for former assistant superintendent Joe Ogeka.
“We have 50 percent of our students on free or reduced lunch. We have the lowest median (income) of any township on Long Island and you people are giving away $376,000 to a man that every time his name came up it had something horrific attached to it,” Down said Tuesday, according toRiverheadlocal.com.
Down told board members she was “absolutely outraged” the board “misled and deceived the public” when it announced Ogeka’s retirement in 2013, because he actually received more than twice his regular salary for an additional year under an agreement the board approved in 2012.
The assistant superintendent, a 30-year employee in the district, retired last June, but received $376,340 for the current school year, which included an early retirement incentive that paid him for an extra year, Riverheadlocal reports.
Ogeka’s base pay was $183,632.64, but he also received cash for unused sick and vacation days and other benefits. The Empire Center for Public Policy published data that shows Ogeka was the highest paid school employee in New York State last year.
According to Riverhead local:
(Ogeka) was granted tenure as an administrator subsequent to a DWI conviction, and subsequently, (as) an associate principal at Riverhead High School in 2000, made the decision to leave in police custody an 18-year-old Riverhead High School student arrested on drug charges during a high school field trip to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey. The student, Rob Pace, was subsequently released by a judge. He committed suicide by jumping onto the LIRR train tracks later that night.
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