City, Bourne Still Embroiled in Legal Fight

’s lawsuit against the city and the school district, which alleges First Amendment violations and contains an accusation of battery against one high-level central office administrator, is grinding on in federal district court.

Bourne, the school district’s former payroll supervisor and the city’s former longtime treasurer, seeks compensatory damages against the school board and city in the lawsuit. Her legal action accuses School Superintendent Michael Frechette of retaliating against her after Bourne raised questions about mileage stipends Frechette and school board members received in 2010.

The lawsuit also alleges that Frechette’s actions, which include trying to maneuver Bourne out of her job as payroll supervisor, were also in retaliation for Bourne’s alerting officials that she believed central office workers were altering financial documents in order to keep control of surplus funds that are supposed to be returned to the city at the end of the fiscal year.

There appear to be no moves to settle the legal action. The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in U.S. District Court in New Haven in May but the city this past week filed a request to extend the deadline to give city lawyers more time to respond to discovery requests made by Bourne’s attorney. Martha Shaw, one of the lawyers for the city, said in her motion officials need to review thousands of emails that are part of the case and had to hire an outside vendor to do the work.

“The process of reviewing and identifying relevant and discoverable e-mails … has been extremely cumbersome and time consuming,” her motion says.

Bourne said this week she filed the lawsuit, in part, to get back her job as the district’s payroll supervisor.

“I’m looking for my job back. I worked for the Board of Education for 16 years and I was let go without warning, without a hearing.”

The case is related to the arrest, in 2010, of the school district’s business manager, Nancy Haynes, on a charge of disorderly conduct. She was arrested after Bourne accused Haynes of cornering her in an office on Nov. 5, 2010, grabbing her arm and scratching her during a verbal altercation between the two over whether Bourne was allowed back at work that day after being suspended. The criminal case is pending in Middletown Superior Court and Haynes has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Haynes and Frechette are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

The legal flap is one of several the district was embroiled in over the past couple of years involving its finances and related to who has the right, the city or the school superintendent, to hire central office staffers. Those legal skirmishes were politically charged, pitting Frechette and the Board of Education, controlled by Democrats, against then-Republican Mayor Sebastian Giuliano. Since defeating Giuliano in last year’s election and taking office in November, Mayor Dan Drew, a Democrat, has sought to , though there’s no indication the city wants settle the one filed by Bourne.

Drew on Wednesday said he could not comment on the lawsuit because it is pending litigation.

Bourne is a Democrat who unsuccessfully primaried Drew to get on the November ballot. After losing the primary bid she ran as a petitioning candidate in the general election, but came in a very distant third, garnering fewer than 200 votes.

Her lawsuit was originally filed in Middletown Superior Court but was transferred to the federal district court because of the First Amendment claims it contains.

Bourne, who previously worked as a secretary in one of the district’s elementary schools, was promoted to payroll supervisor by Giuliano in 2008, a move that increased her salary by $30,000, her lawsuit states. However, after getting the job, she says in the lawsuit, Frechette sought to transfer her out of it to appoint someone else to it. When she refused, Bourne says in her lawsuit, Frechette and other central office workers ostracized her and refused to allow her to work overtime.

After raising concerns with Giuliano about the mileage stipends Frechette and others received, and after questioning what she says were fiscal discrepancies, she said Frechette suspended her from her job. Under a settlement in late 2010 between Giuliano and the school district on another lawsuit, she says, she was ultimately transferred to the Parks and Recreation Department, where she works as a budget analyst but makes less money than her job as payroll supervisor.

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