Administrator doing double duty gets extra pay

PORT WASHINGTON - The Port Washington-Saukville School Board last week approved a $15,000 stipend for the district’s director of student services to compensate him for also serving as acting director of teaching and learning.

Brian Sutton is doing the jobs of two top administrators because Director of Teaching and Learning Tammy Thompson Kapp has been on leave since January and is expected to be absent from her job until she retires on June 30, Interim Supt. Mel Nettesheim said.

Thompson Kapp, who is in her second school year in the district, is being paid while on leave, she said.

Nettesheim has previously said she cannot disclose the reason for Thompson Kapp’s leave.

Although the board voted unanimously to pay Sutton the stipend, which was part of the consent agenda — a number of typically perfunctory items such as meeting minutes that are voted on as a whole — member Nicole Nelson questioned it.

“I just have a lot of reservations about the amount,” she said, adding that employees ranging from educational assistants to administrators put in extra time when needed.

“For that amount of money to go to one person ... it’s a chunk of change,” she said.

Nettesheim said it’s the district’s practice to compensate secretaries, teachers, principals and district administrators for assuming duties that are in addition to those enumerated in their contracts.

“Brian Sutton is overseeing the entire roll of the director of (teaching and learning),” she said “A huge thank you to Brian for stepping up.”

The board also approved a $70,000 annual salary for Heidi Belohlav, executive assistant to the superintendent, retroactive to April 1.

Belohlav had been paid hourly, and with overtime earned close to $70,000 some years, Nettesheim said.

The salary is about the median paid to executive assistants in area school districts, she said.

In addition, the board last week approved the firing of Port Washington High School custodian Scott Helm.

Helm, 62, of the Town of Belgium, was charged last month with making terrorist threats after he showed up for his shift at the school at 2 p.m. on April 16 and began making inappropriate comments and threatening other employees, according to a criminal complaint filed in Ozaukee County Circuit Court.

A witness told police officer Jason Bergin, who serves as the district’s school resource officer, that Helm had recently returned to work from medical leave and been using “inappropriate language” toward other employees, the complaint states.

The witness also said Helm had called multiple times to ask about his eligibility for retirement, and during one of those conversations he said that if he had a gun he would come to school and shoot “all you guys,” according to the complaint.

As he was being escorted from the school, Helm asked to use the elevator to get to the first floor. While on the elevator with Bergin, Helm looked at the officer with a “dead stare” and asked him if he had ever used his gun. When Bergin asked him what he was asking, Helm refused to answer but said he was “on a mission,” according to the complaint.

The incident occurred on a scheduled half day of school and students were not in class at the time.

Helm was arrested and later released from jail in lieu of $1,000 bail. He was ordered by Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Steve Cain not to have contact with the district or its employees and not to possess guns.

The district implemented additional security measures at all its schools following the incident.