The two Richmond County Board of Education officers in leadership positions caught cheating on annual certification examinations each received unpaid suspensions, according to records acquired by an open records request.
Meanwhile Georgia P.O.S.T. notified the RCSS on Sept. 4, that it had opened an investigation into the matter after The Augusta Press broke the story on Sept. 3.
Cpl. Kara Lundy received a three-day suspension. Of the three suspension days, two were on taken on Fridays, and the third on the day after Memorial Day. Effectively Lundy received three long weekends as her suspension.
Personnel records show that while Lundy was deducted eight hours of regular pay each of the three pay cycles, she received overtime for each pay period for more hours than she was deducted.
Lundy was disciplined in April, yet it took until Aug. 20 for officer Sergeant Dorothy Holmon to be given a five-day suspension. Both officers received a formal letter of reprimand in their personnel file.
Police Chief Mantrell Wilson stated he recommended to the personnel review committee that Holmon be disciplined. The RCBOE has failed to disclose any minutes from that meeting, or which individuals make up the committee.
Several board members stated they were unaware any personnel review committee even existed.
RCBOE board member Venus Cain said she is on the personnel committee, but there is another internal personnel board that the superintendent staffs and oversees outside of the elected board members.
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“That board makes decisions and then the we [RCBOE personnel committee] only vote up or down on the recommendation,” Cain said. “We don’t have any say in the matter. We just go with the recommendation given to us.”
Chief Wilson told investigators from Educational Planners LLC that he was considering taking Holmon’s stripes, according to an investigation report. Those same investigators recommended Lundy be removed from the Emergency Management Team and that Holmon receive at least the same level of discipline as Lundy.
Despite spending $14,000 for an outside investigation, the formal reprimand of the two officers fails to mention if they were removed from the Emergency Management Team or if they received any demotion.
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Online courses were suspended for the department pending policy changes, according to the investigation report. Records from GAPOST show that several officers have since taken online courses just not at the same time.
“Virtual courses have not been reinstated, we are working on practical measures to ensure the integrity of virtual instruction,” Wilson said. “Any course taken after the cut off was assigned exclusively to an individual.”
