Court reversal OK’s health benefit for fired Niskayuna bus driver

PHOTOGRAPHER: Michael Goot

Niskayuna school district officials have lost the appeal that sought to take away retirement health benefits for a bus driver who was fired for padding his hours.

The case involves former employee Michael Mareno, who worked both full and part time for the district for about 20 years. In the summer of 2010, Mareno was assigned to a morning and afternoon bus run for special education students. District officials say he put in for more hours than he actually worked nearly every day, They used bus video and GPS tracking data to prove that his time cards were inaccurate.

The district said he was paid $209 that he wasn’t entitled to by adding times as short as 9 minutes during a 15-day period.

Mareno had admitted that he would grab a coffee and Danish after the summer runs.

School officials confronted him in late July and said he could either resign or face disciplinary charges in a hearing. He decided to have a hearing. However, he had filed paperwork with the state to retire and did not notify school officials, continuing to bid on new routes for the 2010-2011 school year.

Mareno submitted a letter of resignation on Sept. 21, 2010 — the day before a disciplinary hearing was to be held. Then-Superintendent Kevin Baughman refused to accept it and the hearing went forward in Mareno’s absence. The hearing officer recommended that he be terminated. In December of that year, the district told Mareno that his status was changing from retired to terminated and he was losing his health benefits.

The Niskayuna School District Employees Association, which represents bus drivers, filed a grievance accusing the district of violating the contract. Last August, an arbitrator sided with Mareno and reinstated his benefits.

The district appealed, arguing that Mareno was a “faithless servant” whose disciplinary history disqualified him from receiving his benefits. In addition to the padding incident, Mareno was fired in 1990 for getting a traffic ticket but returned to the district part time the following year, according to court documents. He returned to full-time employment in the 1998-1999 year.

In a five-page ruling issued last month, Supreme Court Judge Vincent Reilly Jr. sided with Mareno, saying overturning an arbitrator’s ruling can only be done if the decision is irrational, violates public policy or exceeds a monetary limit.

He wrote that the arbitrator found that Mareno’s conduct “was not sufficiently egregious to warrant such a harsh result and that his conduct was appropriately addressed by certain penalties imposed in a separate Niskayuna Town Court proceeding.”

Mareno said he was happy about the decision, but said the district was wasting taxpayer funds by having a disciplinary hearing when he already retired and continuing this appeal.

Mareno has also filed lawsuit against Assistant Superintendent for Business Matt Bourgeois and John O’Donnell, the employee Mareno was accused of following. He alleged slander, libel, intentional infliction of emotional distress and malicious prosecution and is seeking $1 million in damages.

Superintendent Susan Kay Salvaggio said in a statement that the district’s decision to appeal the case was based on the initial finding of the hearing officer that the termination was appropriate.

“As a district that works to manage taxpayer dollars carefully and judiciously, we felt that pursuing this was the right thing to do,” Salvaggio said. “We continue to believe that a terminated employee should not be eligible for retiree health insurance.”