Palmerton OKs payout to principal, attorney; Engler also gets $11,500

Palmerton Area High School’s current principal will receive over $200,000 in damages and legal fees, and a former district superintendent will receive $11,500, in two separate civil lawsuit settlements approved earlier this month by the district’s board of directors.

Per the settlement, obtained through a Right To Know request with the district, principal Paula Husar, and her husband Kenneth, will get $125,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, and the legal firm representing her, Elliot Greenleaf & Dean, will receive $100,000 for attorney fees and costs. According to Palmerton’s business office, the $225,000 is being paid by the district’s insurance company.

Husar filed the civil lawsuit in Carbon County court after the board voted in April to uphold her nine-month suspension from Sept. 7, 2017, to June 7, 2018. She was suspended Sept. 7, 2017, when then Palmerton Superintendent Scot Engler recommended her dismissal to the school board and cited over 20 charges against her.

A dismissal hearing began in late January 2018, with Engler describing an ongoing pattern of behavior leading to a “toxic work environment,” and Husar claiming Engler retaliated against her for an evaluation of him she gave to the school board.

The hearing spanned 15 nights over the course of more than a year and ended with Husar getting her job back, retroactive to June 8, 2018, but a nine month suspension remaining on her record.

Husar’s attorney, Mark Bufalino, filed an appeal, calling the board’s decision to uphold the suspension “improper” and argued that most, if not all, of the charges brought by the district stemmed from incidents dating back to 2015 or 2016, some for which she had already been disciplined.

On Jan. 7, Palmerton’s board unanimously approved the settlement agreement with Husar, which also called for her nine-month suspension to be vacated and written confirmation placed in her personnel file.

“PASD will remove the unsatisfactory evaluation from Mrs. Husar’s personnel file in connection with her 2017 evaluation,” the settlement continued. “In light of the satisfactory evaluation, PASD will change Mrs. Husar’s compensation consistent with the applicable Act 93 agreement to $102,705, retroactive to the beginning of the 2019-20 school year.”

Husar agreed to waive receipt of the salary increase and any wages during the suspension period. The district will pay her $4,393, which reflects the difference between what she was paid for the 2018-19 school year and what she would have received with a satisfactory evaluation.

In May 2019, the month after Husar’s termination hearing ended, Engler and the district mutually parted ways. His separation agreement called for Palmerton to pay Engler $126,831, which was to be his pretax income for the 2019-20 school year. Engler was under contract through 2022.

In addition to the year salary, the district agreed to pay Engler’s benefits until June 30, 2020, or until he found a full-time job with similar health care coverage. On the same night the separation agreement was approved at Palmerton, Engler was hired by Bangor Area School District as special education director, effective July 1, 2019, at a salary of $118,500.

Engler filed a civil lawsuit against in Palmerton in Northampton County Court, asking for that benefit compensation referenced in the separation agreement due to the fact that his benefits at Bangor were “of lesser quality than what he received with Palmerton.”

According to the lawsuit, his premium share at Bangor is $400 more per year, his in-network deductible is $1,200 more per year and his out of network deductible is $1,500 more per year than it was in Palmerton.

“Mr. Engler will spend approximately $9,000 in annual insurance costs that he would not have expended under (Palmerton’s) health insurance plan,” the lawsuit states.

The board voted 6-3 on Jan. 7 to settle with Engler, which included the one-time payment of $11,500.

Voting yes were Kathy Fallow, Kate Baumgardt, Tammy Recker, Earl Paules, Barry Scherer and Sherry Haas. Voting no were Audrey Larvey, Brandon Mazepa and Doris Zellers.

Paules opted to explain his vote at the meeting, saying he didn’t want people to think he was caving by approving the settlement with Engler.

“The bottom line is obviously it would cost more to go the other way on this and fight it,” Paules said. “I just want to be transparent about why I voted the way I did and make it clear it wasn’t simply caving in on this.”

Fallow elaborated, calling the job of school board director a difficult one with the balancing act that has to take place.

“We have to be stewards for the taxpayer and the student, and those two tasks make this job very difficult,” she said. “We have to sit here and decide what is best for the district. We don’t always agree, but I think we can all say we took the time to look at it and make the best vote we could.”