The School Board will give an ultimatum to the company that allegedly reduced state-mandated job requirements for key administrators to reflect their lack of education and experience: Pay back the $99,000 it charged for its work or face legal action.

"Tell them that," School Board Chairman Andy Griffiths told board attorney Dirk Smits at Tuesday's board meeting.

Management Advisory Group (MAG) also allegedly withheld from the board 50 pages of its report that list administrators by name and their recommended raises, board member John Dick said. MAG's report also said teachers already were being paid enough and should not receive salary increases.

Dick showed board members a version of the report that is 50 pages longer than the report they received, in what was titled as the final form, in August 2007, he said.

"The report said, 'teachers get no raise, that they were fairly compensated, and that administrators were given a raise,'" Dick said. "That's offensive."

United Teachers of Monroe President Leon Fowler told The Citizen after the meeting that he wasn't upset by the report, because teachers received salary increases and step pay the next year despite the report.

Board member Debra Walker argued that the report wasn't finished in one unit and that some parts may have trickled in after the board members were given what was then called the final version.

Dick and other board members especially want to interview MAG President Carolyn Long, who has refused to talk to the School Board's investigator. A MAG spokeswoman last week told The Citizen that Long would talk only to board members.

"Without speaking to the people at MAG, it's difficult to determine" whether MAG or school district management made the decisions, investigator Richard Fechter said. "The former superintendent [Randy Acevedo] would have information on that, and the people at MAG would have information on that, both of whom I've been unable to speak to."

Board member Steve Pribramsky said the district could have averted former Adult Education Coordinator Monique Acevedo's alleged theft of school money had she not been allowed to take a job for which she was not qualified.

"The next steps are legal steps," Pribramsky said. "Carolyn Long has refused to answer questions from Mr. Fechter. They had a hand in watering down these jobs. What they did with Monique Acevedo's job is, at a minimum, confusing ... [MAG] could potentially be complicit in a cover-up, and if we were told in 2007 that she was not qualified, we could have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars that allegedly wouldn't have been stolen. I want our money back. To me this is a wrap."

Fechter also said district supervisors may have been involved in the requirements changes.

"The supervisors of those employees approved those job descriptions to MAG before they were changed," Fechter said.

Superintendent Joe Burke, who's read the MAG report as well as an earlier report from Evergreen Solutions that outlined staffing, compensation and other organizational improvements the district could implement, said the reports have important information for improving the organizational chart. Burke, who became interim superintendent on Aug. 24, will bring in a new deputy superintendent and chief financial officer to help him streamline what board members consider a top-heavy administration.

"My impression is, it's a great place to start," he said of the Evergreen report.

Griffiths chairman

Griffiths won the chairmanship again after Pribramsky nominated him for another year.

Dick, who was expected to win the chairmanship last year at a time when board members took turns serving as chairman, won the vice chairmanship after Griffiths nominated him.

Duncan Mathewson momentarily halted the vote for Dick and took him to task for saying in a recent newspaper article that at times board members "kowtowed" to former Superintendent Randy Acevedo's wishes and policies in the past year.

"Do you think that served your board members, Mr. Dick?" Mathewson asked. "I think it was disrespectful, and didn't serve us well." He called Dick a "loose cannon in the press."

Pribramsky defended Dick, saying the vice chairmanship was a proper way to honor Dick, who ran for the board in 2006 on a reformist platform. Pribramsky noted that Dick is the first to point out questionable spending, excessive travel and other places where the district is losing money.

Dick's comments about fellow board members, however, have put them on the defensive before.

Once the voting placed Griffiths and Dick in place, Griffiths, who has said repeatedly that he prefers not to debate some issues in public, criticized Dick for his past comments to the press and asked him to change his ways.

"No more inflammatory remarks against us in the press, our employees or anyone out there," Griffiths said to Dick.

Again, Pribramsky stood up for Dick.

"The board that we were in 2008-2009 is not the board we need to be now," Pribramsky said.

"The kowtow argument is the new bridge from the old board to the new board," Mathewson said, laughing.

"Time to move on to brighter subjects, such as recognizing students and employees," Griffiths said.

Pribramsky told The Citizen that he nominated Griffiths because of his "steady hand" during the past year when the district faced its biggest crisis in years. Griffiths, he said, was "the right man" to have in place during the financial scandal.

jguerra@keysnews.com