Ely hired by Massachusetts district

PHOTOGRAPHER: Peter R. Barber

Eric Ely, left, talks with clerk of the board David Weiser prior to Tuesday evening’s school board meeting.

Superintendent Eric Ely didn’t have to wait too long to land a new job.

Just one day after Schenectady’s Board of Education reached a severance agreement with the embattled administrator, he was unanimously approved as the new superintendent for a smaller school district, Southbridge Public Schools in central Massachusetts. Scott Lazo, one of seven members of the Southbridge School Committee that headed the search for a new superintendent, said contract negotiations with Ely will begin immediately, meaning he could start work sometime later this summer.

“The community can’t wait until he gets here,” Lazo said, following the committee’s meeting late Wednesday evening. “It’s an exciting time in Southbridge and Mr. Ely fits in perfectly with everything we stand for.”

What will Ely be paid?

To read about the status of departing superintendent Eric Ely’s payout, click HERE.

Lazo said he and his fellow committee members were aware of the controversy surrounding Ely’s employment in Schenectady. However, he said Ely’s experience presiding over a larger urban district seemed like a perfect fit for Southbridge, a smaller school district with roughly 2,100 students and an annual budget that is about an eighth the size of Schenectady’s spending plan.

Still unclear is how Ely’s new employment will affect his agreement with Schenectady. Lazo said the new superintendent’s salary will be part of the forthcoming negotiations with Ely.

Ely is poised to replace the retiring Dale Hanley, a popular superintendent credited with turning Southbridge’s fortunes around during her five-year tenure at the school. In her final year as superintendent, she earned a salary of $128,394.

Under the terms of the agreement with Schenectady, the district is obligated to pay the difference if Ely’s new salary is less than $150,000, “not to exceed an amount of $25,000 pro-rated on a monthly basis” over the next year. In the event he finds “comparable employment” before October, the district agreed to pay him $100,000, according to the agreement ratified Tuesday evening.

Ely can cancel the agreement within seven days. However, there is no clause to allow the district to do the same.

Prior to Tuesday’s signed agreement, critics suggested there was cause to fire Ely for apparently tipping off convicted arsonist Steven Raucci to the multi-county law enforcement investigation against him. Raucci, the district’s facilities manager and union president, was sentenced to serve 23 years in prison in April for placing bombs on select homes and vehicles to intimidate his target victims, including several school employees.

Ely also came under fire for the way he handled the district’s budget votes. When residents rejected the first 2009-10 budget, he announced that he had found a way to increase taxes by 15.8 percent if a contingency plan was adopted. Residents then approved the second budget.

Schenectady school board members contacted late Wednesday evening had mixed reactions to the news of Ely’s new employment. Board member Andrew Chestnut, a strident critic of Ely who called for his termination, wished the outgoing superintendent luck in his new endeavors.

“Right now, we are focused more on where we go from here in Schenectady,” he said.

But Diane Herrmann, who joined Chestnut in calling for Ely to be fired, was less satisfied. She said the district will have to comb through the agreement quickly to see exactly how his new job will affect Schenectady.

“I’ll be in contact with our outside counsel first thing [this] morning,” she said late Wednesday evening. “If he is able to revoke it I would call upon him to revoke it for the good of the district and the taxpayers.”