Medina is a fine place to call home. For the quiet and conservative-minded, politically and otherwise, it’s an oasis. For people like Randolph Scott Stepp, it more accurately may be described as a kingdom.
In all of Medina, and likely the county writ large, Stepp may now claim the title of Villain of the Year. Persona non grata. Criminal.
That’s because Stepp just fell off the back end of seven years as the city school district’s superintendent. And with the benefit of hindsight and a citizenry that turned vigilant, those seven years are now seen for the tarnished era they were.
Once the darling of the Northeast Ohio suburb scene, Medina could hold its schools on high. But revelations and accusations have torn that sterling reputation asunder. In Stepp’s wake, Medina found itself faltering, connected far too long to its academic king with far too few questions, all aided and abetted by a complacent school board that ushered in widespread and largely inconceivable financial recklessness.
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The year 2013 will — and already does — in retrospect read like something from the Sophocles canon for the folks down I-71.
In March, headlines ripped across the local presses with startling news. For example, the Medina Gazette, which would lead the traditional Fourth Estate charge throughout the year, ran this one on March 9: “Medina school board OKs Superintendent Randy Stepp’s contract, including $83,000 signing bonus.”
The community blew up.
“That was definitely the catalyst for getting people to finally form together,” Medina parent Angie Kovacs says. She and hundreds more flocked instinctively to board meetings from then on, squaring scrutinizing eyes on a board that once presided over mostly empty chairs in the audience.
Immediately following the news, the “Medina City Schools Outrage Page” cropped up on Facebook. Hundreds of residents came together there to dish openly about the inept board members’ lack of oversight and to propose positive solutions. Questions became constant. How could this contract be real?
After firing Stepp in October, board members would publicly pass the buck and refer to the “shock, dismay and distrust” ebbing from the very financial recklessness they approved back then: A minimum $186,000 yearly salary (with bonuses and benefits tagged on) with an $83,000 “signing bonus” to boot. And then some.
Charley Freeman, then the president of the school board, said in March that his opinion of the contract changed dramatically once the news hit the community, a convenient 180-degree turn: “I took the Gazette…and I said, ‘This $83,000 piece needs to be rethought.’ When I campaigned, I met a lot of people: They don’t have that kind of money.”
The whole mess has been rethought since, but eight months out there remains plenty of uncertain damage in the atmosphere. For instance, Stepp’s promise that he’d repay the $83,000 has gone unfulfilled. A federal lawsuit looms. The board responsible for Stepp’s outlandish contract just tried to pull another fast one with the treasurer’s hefty compensation.
Freeman, who resigned from the board on March 26, tells Scene: “It’s been a very challenging year. It’s been better since I kept my mouth shut, and maybe it needs to stay that way.”
Freeman’s assertion notwithstanding, it was the details of Stepp’s absurd contract that so rankled the community. For instance, among the marquee benefits was the full payment of back student loans at Ashland University ($172,000 for three degrees) and tuition for the MBA program at Case Western Reserve University ($94,000). And he received full reimbursements for vaccinations and a trip to China and Vietnam as part of his MBA program. No questions asked.
“Paying for the guy’s [school loans] is the most absurd, ridiculous, outrageous thing I’ve heard in my entire life,” James Simonelli, who occasionally substitute-teaches in the Medina City School District, says. “It’s nonsensical.” He’s not alone in that critique.
The questionable news kept rolling. A special state audit was released in October that detailed some of the financial impropriety from July 2005 to March 2013. In sum, the state ordered Stepp to reimburse the district $4,121. That dollar figure came from all sorts of nonsense payments Stepp was running through accounts kept outside the district’s purview. Stepp was buying flowers, gift cards, flight seat upgrades, extra nights in luxury hotels while traveling for educational conferences (with family in tow), etc.
Against the backdrop of Stepp’s tenure in Medina, though, that’s softball stuff. The question lingered: How could things escalate so quickly for years without a second look from the school board?
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One answer — and there are many — involves the Medina County Schools’ Educational Service Center (ESC). School districts across the county chip in funds toward the ESC, which maintains “shared services” for district use. Think school nurses or tutors. Need extra personnel? A cooperative purchase agreement, maybe? A Medina County school district can hire someone or purchase materials through the ESC and its funds, which are collected from individual district coffers.
But Stepp, as superintendent, got wise to the fact that there was little oversight for those funds. At the end of each year, there would always be a cash carryover balance. And that balance got really, really big for Medina City Schools relative to other districts. Stepp started jacking up the amount until hundreds of thousands of dollars were going into the ESC and away from the oversight of district officials like treasurer Jim Hudson (and Wally Gordon before him). Stepp, as the numbers show, could then use that money as he saw fit.
Records obtained from the Medina County Educational Services Center show a growing brazenness with the use of the carryover funds year over year. By the time Stepp reached the 2012-2013 school year, he was tapping those dollars with unprecedented zeal.
For instance, a Medina-based technology strategy outfit called DSP — sometimes referred to as DSP Solutions — first showed up during the 2009-2010 school year. They picked up $5,000 from the ESC fund that year, which later ballooned to tens of thousands of dollars in the ensuing years (all counted, $212,711.75 through the available records — plus an additional $46,571 in “encumbered funds” for the 2012-2013 school year). And that’s on top of the $142,457 paid to DSP from the district’s coffers from 2010 to present, according to records obtained through the Medina City Schools treasurer’s office. Grand total: $401,739.75.
The hiccup here: Members of DSP Solutions’ top brass include two of Stepp’s neighbors in the Williamsburg Court/Sunset Drive cul-de-sac where he lives: Bob Thompson (who lives next door) and Glenn Mitchell. They and their private company came onboard just prior to Stepp canning former in-house technology director Dale McRitchie from the schools. Requests for McRitchie’s personnel file were not returned to Scene by press time.
Out of those same ESC funds came expenditures for something called “The Growth Coach.” That’s a component of Medina resident Michael Rao’s Rao Business Coaching company, which offers corporate/business development programming. The Growth Coach took home $29,600 from Stepp’s ESC fund last school year alone.
Rao shares a slot on the United Way board with Stepp; the two are known pals, according to sources. And Stepp routinely went to former ESC treasurer Michelle McNeely with requests for reimbursement. An example, taken from a Post-It note attached to a receipt for vaccines: “Michelle, For the trip that is required for the program I am a part of at Case, I had to get the attached vaccines. I paid for them already and would like to process for reimbursement. Thanks, Randy.” And a cool $260 was reimbursed to Stepp’s wallet, just like that.
Because such numbers were insulated within ESC records books, past and present board members and Medina City Schools treasurers have glommed on to the plausible deniability front. And Stepp axed the assistant superintendent years ago, putting an end to a position that might have afforded a check on his reign.
Even now, no one at the school district has accepted accountability for the ESC expenditures. Or much of anything.
Ohio House Speaker Bill Batchelder, a down-home Medina Republican, pushed through legislation that closed the sorts of ESC loopholes Stepp had grown to love over the years. ESC cash carryovers will henceforth be represented in school district records books. In a year of setbacks, that’s a rare legislative win for Medina taxpayers.
***
In 2006, Randolph Scott Stepp, salt-and-pepper goatee and all, was appointed as Medina City Schools superintendent to a seemingly robust sense of fanfare. He was coming off a stint as principal of Medina High School — 4,000-plus students, mind you — for a few years, and personnel records show that he was either liked or respected. Sometimes both. A natural leader with a business sense about him, recommendations would note.
“The school board did not do a due-diligence investigation into the exploration, qualifications and personality of the man they ultimately hired as superintendent,” Simonelli contends.
Stepp had worked in Medina as a teacher and football coach from 1997 to 2000, heading south at that point to work as a principal in the Ashland City School District — his alma mater. But sources there say that his time in Ashland was pockmarked with administrative reprimands and questionable personal and financial dealings that would foreshadow his rule in Medina.
Returning to Medina City Schools in 2004, Stepp held court as one of the more powerful employees of the district as principal of MHS. His ascension to superintendent, of course, would cement that status.
“At that point [in 2006], I committed myself to students and to developing relationships within this community,” Stepp said at a community forum in March 2013. Of course, by then his tenure had been shaded by outlandish contract language and fantastical benefits like full student loan payments. “What I think happened over the course of the last few years is I became so focused on finance and return on investment, that I started to apply that same thing to my contract from a business perspective.”
That was part of Stepp’s measured answer to a question relating to “shared sacrifice” and occasionally humongous bonus payments asked during a four-hour special board meeting on March 8 of this year. Mere weeks later, his last performance review would declare that he had not “embraced the concept of shared sacrifice with respect to financial compensation and expenditures.”
Even the quickest glance across recent negotiations with the Medina City Teachers Association would show that shared sacrifice within Stepp’s office is a nonsense phrase. Even after Stepp’s latest contract came to light, the union agreed to a two-year salary freeze and an increase in insurance payments (17.5 percent to 20 percent).
The same day that the union voted to ratify that contract, Medina City Teachers Association president John Leatherman received copies of the student loan reimbursement checks. “I had to take that over to my teachers on that same day and share that information,” Leatherman says. “That was the day we had a vote of no confidence [in the school board]. We still haven’t removed that, because we have a couple remaining members who have promised to resign. We’re waiting to see that occur.” (Susan Vlcek and Karla Robinson, the board president, have both announced plans to resign in January 2014 and May 2014, respectively.)
The teachers’ contract comes after a quarter of the teaching staff had been cut over recent years, along with drastic reductions in arts and physical education programs and extracurricular offerings.
By the time Stepp’s performance was under review this year, he had already been placed on administrative leave and public outrage was clear. Justifiable or not, Stepp was in the crosshairs as the district’s fall guy.
“There are places in a school district where you can run like a business, and there are places in a school district where you certainly cannot,” Stepp said earlier this year. All the while, board oversight happily overslept.
There’s a joke that runs around town about Stepp’s financial abandon. Records show that he had been purchasing dozens of books with his district-issued credit card. Among the titles: Integrative Hypnosis: A Comprehensive Course in Change. Hypnosis: The only likely explanation for the board’s glad-handing and rubber-stamping over the years.
***
On Oct. 24, the school board voted unanimously to terminate Stepp’s contract. The board mailed a letter to Stepp’s home on Nov. 21, listing 13 major reasons why he was let go. The letter contained nods to many facts that the board knew about well in advance of the actual termination.
Within the week of Stepp’s firing, voters would take to the ballot and approve a 5.9-mill emergency levy. Under Stepp’s watch, five levy issues were posted to the voters and none had passed. The November 2013 vote, approving the levy by a 16-percent margin, was a strong signal: With Stepp out, things will be different.
Board members Tom Cahalan and Doug Adamczyck — the “new guys” who replaced Charley Freeman and Robert Wilder after their resignations — were re-elected. Wilder had tendered his resignation Feb. 19 of this year, just a few weeks shy of the implosion.
Rounding out the school board, Robert Skidmore was selected to assume Bill Grenfell’s seat in January (the latter having chosen not to run for office). With some fresh faces at the helm of the board and millions of new tax dollars set to flow forth, hope shines anew on the other side of the Stepp era.
“This is a sign of renewed prosperity and real economic growth,” interim superintendent Dave Knight said Nov. 18. “Things are looking good at Medina, and I don’t think we should lose sight of that.”
Things are indeed looking good, and many would say that’s because this is Medina. The schools have garnered excellent ratings for years. But the scandal develops anew around seemingly every corner.
On Nov. 13, Stepp updated his May 2013 federal lawsuit first filed against the school board for breach of contract. This time, he roped in Ohio auditor David Yost, whose office oversaw the special audit that led directly to his termination.
He criticized the method of the state audit, detailing audit manager William Ward’s status as board member of adult literacy organization Project: Learn. That organization hired school board president Karla Robinson as executive director during the assemblage of the audit. Stepp, for what it’s worth, also defended all uses of ESC and Medina City Schools funds. He asked Medina Common Pleas Judge Christopher Collier to stop the board’s termination of his contract.
The timing of the suit and the contents within, much like everything in this tale, were utterly odd. One of the exhibits reveals a May 23 public records request in which Stepp sought email communication from seemingly everyone with even a passing connection to the school board. An assortment of residents and members of the press were wrangled into the request as Stepp attempted to track down all communication about him. Strangely, he misspelled the names of many of the people he included in the request.
As of press time, the state auditor’s office is still working on yet another report about Stepp’s financial transgressions. The U.S. Department of Education is likewise involved, taking a long look at those student loan payments.
***
The Nov. 18 school board meeting painted a picture that summed up 2013 quite well. The main agenda item involved approving a contract for treasurer Jim Hudson. [UPDATE Nov. 27: Hudson resigned from his position as treasurer on Nov. 26, after Scene’s print deadline.]
Given the proximity to the levy’s momentous passage, many in the community were irate at the thought of extending the contract of anyone close to the board. And to further corrode any pretense of transparency proffered by the likes of board president Karla Robinson, all requests to see the contract prior to the meeting were either ignored or denied.
To return briefly to March 2013, when the first spark of outrage shot across the bow of the district, board member Bill Grenfell told the community that future contracts would be handled with the utmost transparency: “I assure you…we will start to do this from this point forward…reaching out and getting help to negotiate those contracts and to publicize them in the community so we can win back your trust and support.” Ho-hum, apparently.
Last week’s meeting began with a 90-minute executive session, during which time the board fiddled with the contract and tempered the package to meet community demand. When Grenfell presented the contract later that night, he showed how there would be no increase in compensation for the treasurer, which is not true, as residents and reporters have pointed out in the days following the meeting. But Grenfell insisted that language and provisions had been cleared up to produce a sterling example of board negotiations.
The problem is, as public records show, the contract presented Nov. 18 was not the original contract. That one was set to offer thousands of dollars of additional benefits tied to Hudson’s dual role as treasurer of the neighboring Cloverleaf School District, an always-odd element of his work duties. Original language also polished that off with some tidy overtime compensation ($47 perhour). It was only in that extended executive session that the board took the time to address community outrage.
As the meeting waned, however, Hudson himself requested that the contract be tabled until the Dec. 16 meeting, garnering an audible sigh of relief from the crowd.
So with the contract slated for an inevitable vote and the school board still faithfully clinging to business as usual, the frustrated audience of community members walked into the night. Fever-pitch grumbling ensued as mouths exhaled winter breaths across the parking lot. Official and informal investigations into the whole of this mess continue, and district residents are watching every move nowadays.
***
When the levy passed in the twilit hours of Nov. 5, Leatherman sent a message to the teachers. As he had on two other important occasions this year, he added a quote from OSU football coaching legend Woody Hayes: “You win with people.” It’s been a helpful refrain, an anchor for the maddening tides of this year’s scandal.
“I think that’s what we took from this,” he says. “There were times when the chips were down. We couldn’t believe that another scandal [was happening]. There are over 60 articles in the Gazette at this point. And you just kept thinking: Something else can’t come up. But you know what? You win with people.”
This article appears in Nov 27 – Dec 3, 2013.
Let me see….18k a year w/ no medical benefits driving buses for Medina City Schools. Sometimes driving his children to school. In 2009 1st failed school levy. Laid off. Almost two years of unemployment at $250 a week before taxes. $3000 a year property taxes. Superintendent indirectly taking money from my family. Really? Now he is lawyered up against my school district. Randy was my boss. He seemed like a great leader. The blue collar workers like me are disappointed in the people that we trust to educate our children. Don’t waste any more of our money on lawsuits. I have 3 cents in my bank account. Just pay back our money.
This was a Stepp in the right direction! There are a few more people that need terminated to bring that district to its rightful place. (as a former mechanic for medina city schools)
Until the behaviors change, not just the faces on the board, we will NOT see transparency here in Medina. Susan Vlcek and Karla Robinson are the final remnants, however, those NEW MEMBERS of the board must be held accountable in their work. This latest contract doesn’t seem to be a good indicator of the performance of new board members.
I still have my protest signs and I’m not afraid to use them…just saying.
Interesting biased view. The founder of the facebook outrage page, Mark Kuhar seems to have a long term relationship with your publication. Mr Sandy, please let your readers know how your relationship with mr.Kuhar impacted your article.
Interesting biased view. The founder of the facebook outrage page, Mark Kuhar seems to have a long term relationship with your publication. Mr Sandy, please let your readers know how your relationship with mr.Kuhar impacted your article.
I hope the tables turn on the outragers and irresponsible reporters who defame and maliciously drag innocent victims through the mud. Specifically referring to the medina gazette and your publication who clearly have taken a one sided approach. Mr. Sandy what is your and the publications relationship with mark kuhar?
Sounds to me like you want this to be another Cuyahoga County thing. I am sure the truth will come out eventually. think about it, there is a reason the Medina Board is withholding information. Otherwise Stepp wouldn’t have filed a suit against them in Medina court a few weeks ago.
Funny, Mr. Stepp doing business with people and other business located in Medina is frowned upon by Mr. Sandy and the “outragers”. Isn’t that what a school district should do? Support the business community who is so crucial to the success of a school district. I’ve read the audit, to me the simple fact is that a great deal of money was spent, whether you agree or disagree with the expenditures is based on your own beliefs. We are victims of our own biases and our biases impact how we view the world. Move on people, stop the witch hunt, let the courts decide, don’t convict people until all the facts are in. Your venom is ruining innocent lives and families. I wonder why Mr. Stepp and his team of lawyers have included the State Auditor in his suit? If the audit was unbiased it would have listed every business and individual the esc issued a check to not just the two businesses the outragers claim Mr. Stepp has a relationship with. Just my opinion…but the courts will decide. If a relationship does exist with DSP and the Growth Coach, so what? Does that mean Mr. Stepp invested in services that had no value? If you feel that’s the case, it’s only your opinion, not right, not wrong, but what expertise do you have in running a school district? It easy to be a naysayer, but what qualifications do you have that clearly show you know better than the board or Mr. Stepp on how and where they spend our money? If you don’t like it, as you have done, vote in a new team, but please stop spewing the venom and let the truth come out in the courts. We have heard your side, now let Mr. Stepp have his day in court, I imagine a few of you may be in for a surprise and may have to live with what you have done knowing you were wrong.
Stepp up for justice. Justice against liberal media and bloggers who are reliving the sixties by trying to make something out of their worthless lives by ruining someone else’s. If you believe the Medina school board is telling the truth you are Fantastical in your thinking. They are putting up a smoke screen. They know they are culpable and are throwing everything they can against the wall in an attempt to divert attention and absolve themselves of responsibility. Read between the lopsided news reports and union driven propaganda. Think about this guy Kuhar. He and his henchmen hide behind social media and the press hoping to gain fame through the destruction of others, which includes not only strp and his family, but also the Medina Board. Who’s next? More “vendors” and innovent and hard working businessman? Guilty until proven innocent has become the theme of the times. Is that what we want to teach our kids? When you don’t like something destroy those who are in charge and the innocent people around them. And do it while you hide behind the walls of the Internet. I find Kuhar and those who login to read his venom to be a disgrace to Northern Ohio.
Okay Randy.
If you are thinking that those of us who voiced our opinions about the OUTRAGE of having money taken from our children’s education and syphoned to finance the superintendent’s agenda are wrong, then please read the court documents filed since 2007. Please read the minutes from board meetings. If you can’t find the minutes (aka January 7, 2012)… then begin your research into the money trail and who profited from some of those contracts.
I am not a”henchman” as northernohiolifer wrote, nor am I a “venom spewer” as said by saveourcommunity. I am a Mom who watched my hard earned tax dollars go down into a blind hole while my kids had to take (and I paid for) online classes in order to graduate with enough foreign language years for college when it was cut from the coursework. My kids had to sit in two study halls, one with over 600 kids when they could have been in challenging classes aimed at “excellence” instead of sitting in a cafeteria because there were not “enough teachers in the budget”. I am the parent who worked hard to pay my bills and who had to deal with pay to play fees and car pools with other parents who are also over-stretched working to raise their families and keep their homes and jobs.
So when you start calling us names, and accusing those of us who dared to speak up as “a disgrace to Northern Ohio”, then you have attacked the foundation of who we really are: neighbors and friends in a community that was taken advantage of by other’s greediness, by our own negligence in overseeing decision-making, and by the lack of character of our school board to say no to a man who violated our trust.
We are not here to back down and drink the kool-aid, nor do we take pleasure in bringing the ugly truth out to public view (paying off student loans with $172,000 of our money was quite ugly). These months of uncovering documents to provide a trail of accountability have taken toll on many of us who blindly assumed we were all taking cuts to help keep our schools strong and support our teachers. Now we know better, but those of you who “dislike” our outrage can wait like the rest of us for the investigation and audits.
In the meantime, please keep your ridiculous name-calling to yourself. It only reveals your ignorance.
If those of you that call us names think for ONE minute we are going to stop going after the misdeeds of previous BOE members or administration, then you are certainly mistaken. I can only speak for myself, but I don’t respond to threats. Is ANYTHING that is in this article not true? Can anyone that is claiming “biased” reporting dispute any fact that Mr. Sandy stated? Does anyone really believe that “lining” your personal pockets while denying students a decent education is acceptable? DO you?!! Attempting to “shout down” those that speak up against those that take advantage of others will not work. Yes, the courts will decide what is legal, we in the community will decide what we can put up with..and I can state unequivically, Mr. Stepp is NOT acceptable, nor the ignorance of those that defend him.
“Tired of irresponsible reporting” should tell us his connection to Stepp. Most likely IS Stepp himself.
Gee I wonder why Northern Ohio Lifer, Save our Community and Tired of Irresponsible Reporting are all identities that have recently been created and feature one post each; and they all sound like they were written by the same language- and grammar-challenged person. Totally lame.
The comment section looks like some of the spots in the Lame Dealer right before the Feds came calling on the political corruption…..you read the desperate verbiage of a cowardly “insider” who posts under numerous names. Randy is a slimmer version of Jimmy…..and his enablers are just like the clowns who stumbled around the county building – trying to look busy – for too many years.
Those on here that defend the slimey snake of a man…AKA Randolf Stepp are most probably those that contributed to his ascension into Power and Corruption! He has scorned his own concocted “Core Values”! What a laugh… What a slimey POS!
Let me remind also that the paying off a superintendent’s outstanding student loans prior to his appointment is completely unprecedented and unique to Medina. All of it is an outrage and I’m sorry we don’t have the money to cover for Mr. Stepp who thought himself a CEO of a major corporation instead of a public servant. Kids went without clay in art class for crying
out loud! No reading intervention, all the services that the ESC money should have covered went to Stepp’s pockets and his contracted “growth” instead of the services it paid for, all the while crying that there was no money to educate our children properly. The cat is out of the bag, the country club lifestyle of the rich and famous is over for Medina. Support local businesses, my foot! His next door neighbor? That’s cronyism and everything should have estimates and bids. Funny, he’s using cronyism as a defense against the state audit. Lay off the “outragers”. If it wasn’t for their vigilance and work, the levy wouldn’t have ever passed. This time we’re making sure it’s “for the kids”.
This was a great expose’ and I appreciate ALL the investigative journalism into this fiasco, iincluding the Gazette.
I want to add I’d like to see an investigative piece into the Kevin Kelley case. Sounds like that guy got rail-roaded by Stepp. This is karma for him.
Look at the Cuyahoga ESC salaries, staff and vendors.
he did not do that medina made something up to get rid of him and put someone else in for cheaper money because medina was jealous
I would like to meet the person who would turn down Mr Stepp’s contract if it was offered to them. The real criminals here are the board of directors who APPROVED paying Mr Stepps student APPROVED his $83 signing bonus. APPROVED his $183 salary. They were elected by the people to responsibly hire a Superintendent. My opinion? They screwed up and they really are the ones that should have to repay the money….. like I said …how many of us would turn down that contract if we had the chance???? none of us.