BOARD CHOOSES LEONARD MERRELL SUPERINTENDENT:
The Katy I.S.D. School Board voted 6-1 Wednesday to name Dr. Leonard Merrell of Texas City the District's new superintendent.
Trustee Mary McGarr cast the dissenting vote while trustees Larry Moore, James Peters, Joe Kimmel, Stanley Thompson, Joe Adams, and Ken Burton voted for Merrell's selection.
In accepting the job, Merrell earned a four-year contract which has a "buy-out" provision unusual among superintendents' contracts in Texas.
Merrell told The New Katy News Thursday that he was excited about the challenges confronting him in Katy I.S.D. He pledged that he would work to establish open lines of "real" communication to all those who are motivated to helping the District become the best it can be.
The contract allows the Board to "unilaterally terminate the Superintendent's employment, with or without cause at any time when one year or less remains on his contract in consideration of and upon the payment of Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars ($25,000).
It is not uncommon policy for a superintendent to have a rolling three-year contract which greatly increases the District's financial obligation in the even problems develop between a superintendent and the Board.
New Katy News article, George Scott Publisher. April 1995
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Obviously, someone came along after me and took the item described above out of the superintendent's contract where I had put it and had talked six other people into agreeing to it's being there. If it had remained, the Board could have ushered Alton Frailey to the door last October when he said he was leaving and saved the taxpayers several hundred thousand dollars. They could also have ushered Leonard Merrell to the door when he decided to leave around six months before he actually left. At least a hundred and fifty thousand savings with Merrell. This measure would also have cut off one year of retirement benefits funded by the taxpayers as well.