The St. Paul School District will pay $5,000 less to the search firm it hired to help find its next superintendent, under a deal reached last week.
The moves comes after one of three finalists for the position — Orlando Ramos of the Milwaukee Public Schools — dropped out after the Star Tribune uncovered a bankruptcy filing in his recent past.
The search firm, Ray and Associates of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, had pledged to do a thorough background check of the candidates it presented to the board.
The firm's contract with the district had called for a $30,000 fee plus up to $5,000 in expenses.
Although Ramos abandoned his bid before the finalists were scheduled to appear at a community event in late March, Ray and Associates has agreed to cover his travel costs, according to a board statement Tuesday.
Last week, Peter Hendricks, a parent with two children at Randolph Heights Elementary School, told the board during the public comments portion of its monthly meeting that it should withhold some of its payment to Ray and Associates to hold it "accountable for not doing its job."
"If Ray and Associates had done its work and a basic background search, the board may have selected a different candidate to consider and the entire community would have had the opportunity to interview and consider three strong candidates — not just two," he said.
The board later agreed to hire Joe Gothard, superintendent of the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District.
