Gootee & Gootee v. School Board Pf Monroes County , 201 So. 3d 115 ( 2015 )


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  •       Third District Court of Appeal
    State of Florida
    Opinion filed September 24, 2015.
    Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
    ________________
    No. 3D14-2000
    Lower Tribunal Nos. 13-1083, 13-1084
    ________________
    David Gootee and Marisa Gootee,
    Appellants,
    vs.
    School Board of Monroe County, Florida,
    Appellee.
    An Appeal from a Final Order of the School Board of Monroe County,
    Florida.
    Gene Reibman (Plantation); Robert K. Michael (Tampa), for appellants.
    Vernis & Bowling of Florida Keys, and Scott C. Black and Theron C.
    Simmons (Islamorada), for appellee.
    Before SALTER, FERNANDEZ and LOGUE, JJ.
    SALTER, J.
    David and Marisa Gootee (the “Teachers”) appeal a final order of the School
    Board of Monroe County (“School Board”) terminating the Teachers’
    employment. The School Board’s final order allowed all ten exceptions taken by
    the School Board from the administrative law judge’s recommended order
    following a single-day administrative hearing. We affirm the School Board’s final
    order.
    I.    Facts and Proceedings Below
    The Teachers taught cosmetology to high school students at a public high
    school in Key West.        Both signed professional services contracts as salaried
    certificated teachers for each designated school year. In 2001, the then-director of
    vocational education asked the Teachers to teach adult education students as well
    as the regularly-enrolled high school students. The director told them that the adult
    education students would attend class during the regular school day rather than at
    night, and that the Teachers would be paid an additional three hours per day for the
    extra work. The adult education program was administered separately, and the
    Teachers did not sign a professional services contract for the hourly adult
    education instruction.
    From 2001 through 2007, the Teachers filed electronic timesheets. From
    2007 through October 2009, the Teachers filed paper timesheets to substantiate the
    2
    additional pay.    The timesheets were signed by the Teachers’ supervisor, the
    supervisor’s secretary, and the interim director for adult education.
    In September 2009, the interim adult education director became the
    permanent director of the adult education program, at which point he gained access
    to the School Board’s master schedule. He reviewed the class schedules at the
    high school and realized that the Teachers’ time sheets for their high school classes
    showed an overlap1 with their hours reported for adult education contract pay. The
    director then met with the Teachers about the overlapping compensation and later
    stopped the payments. Thereafter, after consultation with the superintendent of
    schools for Monroe County, the adult education director suspended the Teachers
    from their jobs.
    In January 2010, the superintendent notified the Teachers that they were
    violating School Board policy by “preparing and submitting false time reports for
    additional compensation for which [they] were already being compensated under
    the Teachers’ School Board contract.” The School Board filed an administrative
    complaint alleging that the Teachers had: (1) prepared false timesheets for identical
    1  The timesheets submitted for the Teachers’ adult education classes showed a
    time in of 8:30 a.m. and a time out of 3:45 p.m., with a maximum of three hours
    claimed for those classes. The Teachers did not claim adult education hourly pay
    during sick days, personal days, or other absences. Those “time in” and “time out”
    times marked the starting and ending times, however, for their normal school days
    as salaried high school vocational teachers. The three adult education hours
    overlapped with their regular high school teaching hours.
    3
    and overlapping work; (2) submitted false timesheets for additional hours not
    worked; (3) received additional compensation for work that had already been paid;
    and (4) exposed the School Board to liability for submission of false time sheets in
    connection with student access to “Perkins funds.”2
    The School Board alleged that the Teachers’ conduct violated School Board
    Policy 3210(22) [Standards of Ethical Conduct; staff members shall not submit
    “fraudulent information on any document in connection with professional
    activities”], section 1012.795, Florida Statutes (2010), and Florida Administrative
    Code Rule 6B-1.006 (2010).3
    The cases against the Teachers were heard in August 2013, and the
    administrative law judge (“ALJ”) issued a recommended order in November 2013.
    The ALJ concluded that the School Board had failed to prove that the Teachers’
    time entries were false or inaccurate and that the Teachers had acted with the intent
    to deceive. The recommended order proposed the dismissal of the School Board’s
    complaints, reinstatement of the Teachers to their employment, and an award of
    any lost salary and benefits.
    The School Board filed ten separate and detailed exceptions to the
    recommended order.       In July 2014, the School Board issued its final order
    2   See 20 U.S.C. §§ 2301-2415.
    3 This rule has since been renumbered as Florida Administrative Code Rule 6A-
    10.081.
    4
    accepting each of the exceptions, modifying the ALJ’s recommended order, and
    upholding the termination of the Teachers’ employment. This appeal followed.
    II.   Analysis
    The salient facts are undisputed. The parties differ sharply on the legal
    consequences flowing from those facts. The School Board was obligated to afford
    the presumption of correctness to the findings of fact by the ALJ that are supported
    by competent substantial evidence. Dunham v. Highlands Cnty. Sch. Bd., 
    652 So. 2d
    894 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995). But the School Board’s authority to reject or modify
    the ALJ’s recommended order regarding issues of law and the application of
    agency rules is not confined by any such presumption.           Section 120.57(1)(l),
    Florida Statutes (2014), sets forth these standards for the School Board’s review of
    the ALJ’s recommended order:
    The agency may adopt the recommended order as the final
    order of the agency. The agency in its final order may reject or
    modify the conclusions of law over which it has substantive
    jurisdiction and interpretation of administrative rules over which it has
    substantive jurisdiction.      When rejecting or modifying such
    conclusion of law or interpretation of administrative rule, the agency
    must state with particularity its reasons for rejecting or modifying
    such conclusion of law or interpretation of administrative rule and
    must make a finding that its substituted conclusion of law or
    interpretation of administrative rule is as or more reasonable than that
    which was rejected or modified. Rejection or modification of
    conclusions of law may not form the basis for rejection or
    modification of findings of fact. The agency may not reject or modify
    the findings of fact unless the agency first determines from a review
    of the entire record, and states with particularity in the order, that the
    findings of fact were not based upon competent substantial evidence
    5
    or that the proceedings on which the findings were based did not
    comply with essential requirements of law. The agency may accept
    the recommended penalty in a recommended order, but may not
    reduce or increase it without a review of the complete record and
    without stating with particularity its reasons therefor in the order, by
    citing to the record in justifying the action.
    With respect to the School Board’s ten exceptions to the ALJ’s
    recommended order, the School Board was required to, and did, rule explicitly on
    each exception after a review of the complete record. See Mas v. Miami-Dade
    Cnty. Sch. Bd., 
    26 So. 3d 73
    (Fla. 3d DCA 2010).
    Our own review of the resulting final administrative order is governed by
    section 120.68, Florida Statutes (2014). We find that the exceptions were well
    taken and based upon the record. The Teachers were receiving 10.5 hours of
    compensation for working a 7.5-hour school day, and the School Board (as
    opposed to the former director of vocational education) never consented to, or
    acquiesced in, the submission of the overlapping time records and requests for
    payment. The Teachers’ defense amounts to an argument that the submission of
    false time records (to support payments of approximately $192,600.00 for the adult
    education hours) is not a dishonest professional act if a supervisor has condoned it.
    Simply stated, there is no such exception to the School Board’s Standards of
    Ethical Conduct or the State Board of Education’s Principles of Professional
    Conduct for the Education Profession in Florida, Rule 6A-10.081(5)(h). And there
    is no evidence in the record, nor is there any finding proposed by the ALJ, that the
    6
    arrangement for two paychecks for a single 7.5-hour, regular high school day was
    ever approved or condoned by the School Board.           The professional services
    contracts signed by the Teachers for their salaried high school teaching stated
    explicitly that “[n]o person, officer or employee may modify the provisions of this
    agreement or make any other contract with the Teacher for an [sic] on behalf of the
    School Board without express ratification by the School Board.”4
    III.   Conclusion
    This result seems harsh in the sense that no one has questioned the quality of
    the instruction provided by the Teachers, and it is clear that a supervisor—albeit an
    equally or even more culpable supervisor—facilitated the arrangement.
    Nonetheless, the School Board’s legal authorities, exceptions, and final order are
    entirely correct. The supervisor’s purported authorization to the Teachers to falsify
    and submit an official school record, and to realize a financial benefit from those
    acts, did not immunize the Teacher’s misconduct.
    Affirmed.
    4  Professional Service Contract of Employment for Instructional Personnel of the
    Public Schools, Form 1-PS (Rev. 9/1/84), paragraph 14, as entered into the
    administrative record for the 2004-05 school year. The same form, with annual
    adjustments that are not pertinent here, was in evidence for the other years at issue
    in the consolidated cases.
    7
    

Document Info

Docket Number: 14-2000

Citation Numbers: 201 So. 3d 115

Filed Date: 9/24/2015

Precedential Status: Precedential

Modified Date: 1/12/2023