James Fisher

The News Journal

Collick's salary as Cape Henlopen High's dean of students rose from %2463%2C000 to %24107%2C500 in 2012

Collick went 81-48 as Delaware State University's football coach from 1985-96

Collick also coached football at Sussex Tech High School

A state audit found evidence of coziness in the Cape Henlopen School District, with two sisters working in the same financial department and at least two instances of administrators double-dipping – collecting full-time salaries and state pensions at the same time.

The school board also boosted the salary of the high school's dean of students, Bill Collick – who is also the school's football coach – from $63,000 to $107,500 in 2012, the audit report stated. The sharp pay increase was given to Collick after he had to stop collecting a state pension, the report notes.

While public employee pension amounts are kept confidential, records show the pay increase more than made up for the loss of pension benefits.

From when he was hired in 2010 until mid-2012, Collick collected both a state pension and a Cape Henlopen School District salary, the report from Auditor Thomas Wagner states. His Cape salary was $54,000 the first year and $63,000 the second.

New rules took effect in July 2012, clarifying prohibitions on retired state employees working in other full-time state jobs while collecting pensions. The state's pension office told Collick as early as April 2012 he had to stop drawing pension benefits or have his salary with Cape drop to $19,240, which would have cut his pay by $43,760.

Collick opted to suspend his pension benefit, the audit report says. But for the 2012-13 school year, the board boosted his salary as dean of students by about $44,000.

Collick is now earning $110,000 in his dean of students job, slightly more than the salaries of Cape Henlopen High School's three assistant principals, the report says.

Collick, an acclaimed football coach at Delaware State University and Sussex Technical High School before coming to Cape, earns an additional $7,500 as head football coach of the Vikings. He did not respond to an email or phone calls seeking comment Monday.

Kathleen A. Davies, chief administrative auditor, said the auditor's office didn't consider the dean and coach's abrupt pay increase a problem in terms of financial reporting regulations.

"There's no criteria against it," Davies said Monday. "We just wanted to make that public for taxpayers and everyone to see. People are going to have different perspectives on the issue."

The findings are part of a May 8 audit report that Davies said was prompted by five complaints the auditor's office received in the summer of 2012.

The report was critical of an arrangement in which two sisters work in the school district's finance office, one of them having some supervisory authority over the other. The report said the district's director of business operations, Oliver Gumbs, told auditors that proper controls are in place because he has final approval of payroll entries. The report did not name the employees.

"There seems to be a residual strain within the district's business office regarding favoritism," the report said, contending other financial secretaries' duties should be shifted to eliminate the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The audit also found that an interim district superintendent from 2010 to 2011, David Robinson, collected a state pension during the year he earned a $173,000 salary from Cape Henlopen School District.

Robinson took that position in June 2010, the month Collick was hired as Cape's football coach. The football program had been rocked by the arrest in April 2010 of the previous coach, Tom Ott, on child sex abuse and rape charges.

Collick, a 1970 Cape Henlopen High grad, had been head coach of the DSU football team from 1985 to 1996, amassing an 81-48 record. He'd also been a football coach at Sussex Tech for a decade, leaving after several winning seasons. While Cape Henlopen's football team was 1-9 in 2009, Ott's final year as coach, Collick guided the team to a 5-5 season the next year and winning records the following three years, with a DIAA Division I championship tournament appearance in 2012.

The report said the state's Office of Pensions told auditors they would not attempt to recoup what was paid to Collick and Robinson when they were earning both pension benefits and significant school district salaries because "these two situations are not currently violating any pension rules."

Davies said the state's rules about which employees could collect pension benefits and work state jobs at the same time were "murky" before the 2012 revision of 'return-to-work' rules. "Every one of these we've touched, we find, is complicated," Davies said.

The report doesn't say what Collick and Robinson earned in pension benefits during the periods when they were getting both a pension and an administrator's salary. While current public employees' salaries are considered public information, the dollar amount of how much pension benefit a retired state employee earns is not, an Office of Management and Budget spokeswoman said.

Auditors credited Superintendent Robert Fulton, who has held that position since 2012, for cooperating wholly with the audit. Fulton did not reply to a request for comment Monday.

Cape school board member Sandi Minard referred questions about the audit report to board president Spencer Brittingham, who did not return a message seeking comment. Other board members did not respond to requests for comment.

Contact James Fisher at (302) 983-6772, on Twitter @JamesFisherTNJ or jfisher@delawareonline.com.