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Former Central Unified Superintendent Andy Alvarado will get a lump sum salary payment of $110,378.50 and remain on the district’s health insurance plan through next February under a severance agreement with the district made public on Tuesday.
The lump sum payment is the equivalent of six month’s pay for Alvarado, who will wind up with a smaller check after the usual tax withholdings. The payment will not be creditable to the California State Teachers Retirement System.
The pact also states that Alvarado will be paid for accrued vacation time, but the amount was not detailed in the seven-page agreement. The district did not immediately provide information on the vacation pay amount. Later Tuesday, district spokesman Gilbert Magallon said Alvarado is getting $10,559.30 in “gross accrued vacation.”
According to the agreement, Alvarado agreed to resign from his job and not sue the district.
Alvarado’s resignation and the agreement were announced a week ago at the School Board meeting. Despite news media requests for the agreement that night, it was not released until Tuesday because the district’s head of human resources, who is in charge of releasing such documents, was out of the office last week, Magallon said.
On Paid Leave Since June
Alvarado, who was hired as superintendent in 2018, was put on paid administrative leave after his June 3 arrest by Fresno police in a domestic violence case. The district subsequently launched an internal investigation into “off-duty alleged misconduct that has come to the district’s attention,” board president Yesenia Carrillo said at the time.
The board subsequently named associate superintendent Ketti Davis as acting superintendent.
Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp said personal and professional relationships prevented her office from following up on the case, so it was turned over to the Madera County District Attorney.
Earlier this month Madera County District Attorney Sally Moreno said the case would not be prosecuted because the charges could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard in criminal prosecutions.
Alvarado, who previously was superintendent of the Golden Valley Unified School District in southern Madera County, had replaced Mark Sutton as Central’s superintendent after Sutton was fired by the School Board. His firing led to voters ousting three trustees in the 2018 election.