AUGUSTA — Good Will-Hinckley will pay House Speaker Mark Eves $30,000 for ending its employment agreement with the Democratic leader.
The payment represents a three-month severance for Eves, who had been hired to become the next president of Good Will-Hinckley. The private nonprofit withdrew its job offer last week, after Gov. Paul LePage threatened to yank $530,000 in annual state funding for Good Will-Hinckley’s charter school, the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences, unless the institution ended its employment agreement with the House speaker.
Eves would have earned $120,000 a year as president of the entire institution. He is weighing a civil lawsuit against LePage, whom he has accused of blackmailing Good Will-Hinckley into severing his contract.
David Webbert, an employment attorney hired by Eves, said Tuesday that Eves has not yet received the severance payment. Webbert said that the employment agreement provided that Good Will-Hinckley could terminate the contract without cause with 60 days notice and then pay him one month severance, or $10,000.
Webbert said the school unilaterally exercised that part of the employment agreement. The institution also didn’t keep Eves on for 60 days, per the terms of the contract.
Therefore, under the terms of the employment agreement, Eves will be put on the payroll beginning Wednesday. He will remain on the payroll for at least 60 days. The school will then pay him a lump sum for the one-month severance or leave him on the payroll for another month.
Webbert argued that the decision to terminate Eves without cause and still keep on the payroll for 60 days showed that the school was blackmailed by LePage.
“Otherwise, there is no reasonable or logical explanation for why the school acted this way,” he said.
Webbert said that the employment agreement was an “unusually bad deal,” despite assertions to the contrary Tuesday by Maine Republican Party operatives. Webbert said that most superintendents and principals at public schools receive a one- or two-year contract that cannot be terminated without cause.
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