When he announced in May 2018 that he planned to resign, Katy ISD Superintendent Lance Hindt was mired in accusations he had been a junior high school bully and was the subject of news reports about alleged plagiarism on his University of Houston doctoral thesis.

Katy ISD board members still signed off on what was reported to be a payout of some $750,000, an amount equal to two years of base pay, plus benefits to Hindt.

Turns out, that final severance deal was so big it came with a penalty.

The Texas Education Agency notified Katy ISD in a letter dated May 31, 2019 that it was reducing the district’s state funding by $513,754.56.

State law requires district funding be cut by however much a superintendent’s severance exceeds a year’s salary and benefits.

Hindt stepped down Jan. 1, 2019. His payout, including cash and benefits, totaled $955,795.72, according to TEA records.

His yearly salary and benefits were $442,041.16, according to the TEA.

Dallas Morning News columnist Dave Lieber reported on the penalty Thursday.

Katy ISD acknowledged the reduction in a statement that afternoon.

“Seems to me that the state has assumed that school districts would be less likely to give out these outrageous severances if they attached a penalty to them,” said Katy ISD parent Sean Dolan, a vocal critic of Hindt, “but in the case of Katy ISD, that doesn’t seem to have fazed them at all.”

Trouble for Hindt began in March 2018, when a Katy businessman accused Hindt of shoving his head in a urinal when they were in middle school.

The businessman said he hoped for Hindt to say sorry, not to step down.

Hindt called the accusation and those that followed “an organized, relentless and dishonest smear campaign.”

When Hindt’s retirement was announced, the district agreed to help pay for a possible defamation lawsuit against his critics.

The severance amount was met with controversy. Last month, debate renewed when it was reported that Hindt’s doctoral thesis was gone from the University of Houston website after a plagiarism investigation. A finding of academic misconduct can result in degree revocation, UH has said.

Efforts to reach Hindt about UH’s decision in January were unsuccessful.

Dolan, the Katy ISD parent, had pointed out to the university what he believed were problems with the paper. Dolan’s website highlights entire sections of Hindt’s dissertation that make the same points, often using similar language, and provides 20 examples of similarly or identically written sentences.

Dolan said a decision on severance should have been made after that issue was resolved.

Emily Foxhall is the Texas Storyteller for the Houston Chronicle. Read her on our free site , chron.com, and on our subscriber site , HoustonChronicle.com. | emily.foxhall@chron.com | Twitter: emfoxhall

emily.foxhall@chron.com