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Public commenters accuse Forest Hills board of approving PTO payout to superintendent, question hiring and transportation oversight
Summary
During public comment, residents alleged a May 28 contract amendment allowed roughly $12,000 in unused PTO to be paid to Superintendent Dr. Schubel and questioned the board’s hiring process and oversight of transportation; the board’s response is not recorded in the provided segments.
Several public commenters at the Forest Hills Public Schools meeting criticized the board’s handling of Superintendent Dr. Schubel’s contract and raised concerns about district transportation oversight.
A resident alleged the board approved an amendment on May 28 that resulted in a payout of more than $12,000 for 16 days of unused vacation/PTO to Superintendent Dr. Schubel. The commenter characterized the payment as an extra payment on top of what they said was a roughly $195,000 annual salary and said paying out unused PTO was not negotiated in the original contract. The commenter asked whether the six board members who voted "yes" were "fiscally incompetent" or had felt coerced, and suggested the timing of the amendment was suspicious given a 10-day approval period that could place the effective date around June 7.
Another commenter, identified in the transcript as Nick Priel, echoed earlier criticisms. Priel said the decision to hire Dr. Schubel was rushed nearly a year earlier, questioned whether her experience at East Grand Rapids prepared her to manage a district with a transportation department, said she had not attended transportation meetings, and criticized the additional $12,000 payment as a substantive increase in her compensation.
Those comments appear only in the public-comment portion of the recorded segments; the transcript does not include a board response, a staff explanation, or an on-record vote count confirming the alleged May 28 amendment outcome. The statements about salary, payout amount, vote tally and dates are the commenters' claims as captured in public comment and have not been independently verified in the transcript.
Key details drawn from the comments include: the commenter said the payout covered 16 vacation days; the amount was described as "over $12,000"; the superintendent's salary was described by a commenter as "roughly $195,000." The transcript contains inconsistent spellings of the superintendent's name in different segments; this article uses the spelling "Dr. Schubel" consistently when referring to the superintendent.
