THE SAUGUS ADVOCATE – FriDAy, FEbrUAry 21, 2025 Page 3 FIRING | FROM PAGE 2 Employment Agreement,” Arbitrator Talmadge concluded. “Section 12.1 states, ‘good cause’ herein shall be defined as any ground put forth by the Committee in good faith that is not arbitrary, irrational, unreasonable or irrelevant to the task of building and maintaining an efficient school system,” it continued. “The School Committee relied on the findings of the independent law firm, Arrowood, to terminate the Superintendent. Those findings included that the Superintendent: 1) accepted payments from consultants without proper disclosure or notice, 2) approved invoices from a vendor that included inflated hours, unapproved hours, and alcohol, and 3) spent excessive time out of the district. The Arrowood report These are highlights from the report that were the basis for the School Committee voting to fire McMahon: • The superintendent had a longstanding relationship with Relay, performed paid consulting services for Relay, which she did not disclose to the School Committee nor did she submit any conflict-of-interest disclosure about said consulting until April 6, about 15 minutes before she was scheduled to be interviewed in connection with this investigation and more than a year after her initial consulting services were provided to Relay. • McMahon also received gratis professional development training from Relay, which she did not disclose to the School Committee nor reference in her conflict-of-interest disclosure. Superintendent McMahon retained Relay to provide professional development services for the District at a cost of $84,000, of which $56,000 was contracted for and paid out after she performed her initial consulting services for Relay, representing tuition costs for four individuals to attend professional development training in New York City and Denver, Colorado, and does not include any expenses paid directly to those individuals in connection with their attendance at that program. • The superintendent either intentionally or negligently permitted a professional development provider (Excellence Reflex Consulting LLC) to charge the District in excess of amounts actually earned for the services provided to the District. • Superintendent McMahon either intentionally or negligently permitted a professional development provider (Excellence Reflex Consulting LLC) to charge the District for the purchase of alcohol on one occasion from Title I grant funds, and did so in spite of her receipt of an admonition from at least one member of the District’s leadership team that such charges could not be made to the District, through permitting the use of multiple revised invoices from said professional development provider. • Between July 1, 2022, and January 19, 2023 (the date on which she began administrative leave), Superintendent McMahon was out of district 40.5 days, nearly double the amount of time the previous superintendent spent out of district. But in each instance, the arbitrator’s report concluded there was no basis to substantiate the allegations. On November 2, 2023, the Committee conducted the hearing in an open public session at Dr. McMahon’s request. At the November 2 termination hearing, Dr. McMahon only knew the information provided in the redacted Executive Summary given to her. Right before the public session started, Dr. McMahon provided the School Committee with a large number of documents in a rebuttal statement to respond to the information disclosed in the redacted Executive Summary. Chair Serino summarized the four matters from the August 30 letter at the outset of the hearing. While certain Committee members testified that they had an issue with McMahon providing this information at the hearing, she was unable to provide the information beforehand because the parties had reached a settlement in principle, and she understood that the Rebuttal would not be necessary. However, the settlement fell through 48 hours prior to the hearing. McMahon received notice of the November 2 termination hearing on October 31, two days prior to the termination hearing. Dr. McMahon’s counsel made a request for the full report on the record, and Chair Serino replied by implying the Committee had not seen the full report, although this was not the case. After Dr. McMahon was given an opportunity to orally address the School Committee, she asked the Committee to review and consider her Rebuttal, and invited the Committee to ask any questions. The hearing lasted 25 minutes. The Rebuttal consisted of a nine-page written statement by Dr. McMahon with 18 exhibits, including an affidavit of Chi FIRING | SEE PAGE 4 RON’S OIL Call For PRICE MELROSE, MA 02176 NEW CUSTOMER’S WELCOME ACCEPTING VISA, MASTERCARD & DISCOVER (781) 397-1930 OR (781) 662-8884 100 GALLON MINIMUM Great Classified Ad Rates! 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