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Trustees, Tatro agree to end his employment
By mutual agreement, the employment of Clayton Tatro as Fort Scott Community College president has come to an end.
The announcement was made after the FSCC Board of Trustees held a 25-minute executive session with the college's attorney, Zackary Reynolds of The Reynolds Law Firm, PA of Fort Scott to discuss non-elected personnel to protect their privacy.
Board member Mark McCoy made the motion for the agreement discussed during the executive session be approved and signed by Robert Nelson, board president. The motion passed unanimously.
"So by mutual agreement, the college and president have agreed to end the employment relationship," Nelson said. "Terms of the agreement are confidential."
McCoy then made the motion to name Board Member Dick Hedges as interim president until a full time president can be hired. The motion was passed with Hedges abstaining.
He tendered his resignation as a trustee later in the meeting.
The agreement between the board and Tatro comes nearly a week after trustees were handed a letter proclaiming a vote of no confidence in Tatro from a majority of members of the Fort Scott College Association of Professional Employees. Of the 43 members, 76 percent had voted and of that, about 85 percent were in favor of the vote of no confidence, according to FSCAPE President Elie Riachi.
The letter was given to the board prior to a special meeting held July 22, when trustees entered into an executive session to discuss non-elected personnel to protect their privacy. The executive session, which included Reynolds, was originally scheduled for an hour, but was extended multiple time to a total of about 2.5 hours.
Tatro's current employment was to run through June 30, 2017. His base salary was set at $103,997, but he also received a $12,000 vehicle allowance, according to information he had earlier provided The Tribune. His employment began in 2007.
Hedges has served as FSCC president twice -- from 1983 to 1989 and from 2001 to 2005.
How much, if any, compensation Tatro will receive is not being released. Reynolds left the meeting as soon as the vote was taken to name Hedges the interim president.
Even though Tatro's salary and agreement are a matter of open record, McCoy said the terms of the mutual agreement to end Tatro's employment is not.
"As I understand it, in order to protect personnel matters, that is the process that is used," McCoy said during a break in the meeting and after he was elected board chairman. "I am not allowed to comment on personnel matters."
Before the board elected its officers, Nelson made a statement to the nearly 50 people who attended the meeting.
"Let me just state that the last of couple of weeks have been pretty rough," Nelson said. "But I want to thank the board for all the work the board has done."
He also thanks administration staff members for "getting things done even under the circumstances we find ourselves."
"We thank you for all the work you have done because the college continues to go on," Nelson said.
Later, before the board began a budget work session, Nelson commented further on the past week.
"The week has been a week that we've had some decisions to make and a process to go through," Nelson said during a meeting break. "And as a board, we had a process to go through. A lot of times people don't understand, as a board, there's a process that we have to go through and it may not be as quickly as people in the public would like."
He said he has mixed feelings following the decision.
"It's a mixture, certainly," Nelson said. "I had a great relationship with Dr. Tatro, so there's a mixture, absolutely."
Tatro did not attend Monday's meeting, nor did he attend the July 22 meeting. He did not return calls from The Tribune for comments on the no confidence vote and rumors about this employment status, which had circulated following the July 22 meeting.
"I believe he's been in to clean things personal items out of his office," Jason Hogue, director of public Relations said.
Hogue said he briefly left the meeting to email faculty and staff of the announcement.
More on Monday's meeting will appear in a future edition of The Tribune.