PEABODY — The School Committee denied Superintendent C. Milton Burnett's request to carry over 14 unused vacation days into the current fiscal year, Mayor Michael Bonfanti said.
Burnett is entitled to 25 vacation days a year and the unused time would have been in addition to the 10 vacation days his contract allows him to carry from one year to the next.
"We decided to just stay with the contract instead of renegotiating it," Bonfanti said after last night's School Committee adjourned. "We have got to set an example."
The committee voted in a private session prior to the meeting and the matter was not discussed during the public session.
Two weeks ago, Burnett said his heavy workload only allowed him to take 11 days of vacation. Operating without an assistant superintendent, he said, the summer had been extremely busy with "numerous time-sensitive initiatives."
In a letter to Bonfanti, Burnett said he had been processing staff reductions, meeting with employees who were laid off, reviewing and updating student handbooks, conducting searches for new principals and a special education director, preparing for the implementation of a new elementary literacy program, developing grant priorities, addressing bullying issues, attending meetings related to the alternative high school at the Northshore Mall and working with numerous parents concerning increased bus fees.
"As a consequence of working with all of the above, in addition to routine duties, I have been unable to utilize my allotted vacation days," Burnett said in his letter. He requested that his unused days be carried over "for this one time."
Burnett told committee member Ed Charest at a meeting two weeks ago that the 14 carried-over days would give him close to 50 vacation days. Charest, citing recent criticism levied against the committee for funding administrator raises, said he would not support fulfilling the superintendent's request.
According to the terms of his contract, if Burnett has in excess of 10 vacation days remaining at the end of a year, the excess days are forfeited.
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