A pay scandal for Public School Boards

Sharom Noguchi is on the watch for this one:

At a time when California school board members were agonizing over laying off employees, slashing programs and imposing furloughs, the man who was the boards' public face earned $1.61 million over four years.

Scott Plotkin's base salary rose 52 percent from 2006 to 2009, plus he received annual bonuses -- $175,000 in 2008 alone -- according to information released Thursday by his employer, the California School Boards Association.

Plotkin, 56, retired effective Sept. 1, after admitting that he publicly lied about his pay and credit card use. In July, Sacramento television station KCRA reported his salary and revealed that Plotkin used his CSBA credit card to take out $11,000 in cash advances at casinos. Plotkin claimed the CSBA board knew about the advances; he later admitted that was not true.

HT Pension Tsunami