By a vote of four to one, the Gilmer County Board of Education accepted assistant superintendent Stuart Sheriff’s resignation.
The called meeting was held Monday, Aug. 10. The board and superintendent Dr. Shanna Downs entered executive session to discuss the matter for nearly 20 minutes.
When they reemerged, Downs made the motion to accept Sheriff’s resignation before the floor was opened for discussion.
Vice chairman Ronald Watkins voiced his displeasure with the matter.
“I can’t accept his resignation based on the stuff that we got,” Watkins said. “We’ve got documentations and have done everything the lawyers told us to do. My vote will be to dismiss him.
“With the terms of his resignation, and with what we’re paying him off to leave, I don’t like it all, period. My vote will be ‘no’ to accept his resignation. I want to terminate him.”
Watkins voted against accepting Sheriff’s resignation moments later. Chairman Michael Bramlett and board members Jim Parmer, Tom Ocobock and Doug Pritchett all voted in favor of accepting Sheriff’s resignation. The meeting was adjourned shortly after.
Details remained scarce after the meeting. Downs was reluctant to give any further information.
“I don’t know what I can legally say other than Mr. Sheriff resigned,” she said. “I don’t know what else I can say other than he resigned effective Nov. 30, which was the source of the argument.”
Sheriff has the second highest annual salary in the school system along with special education director Kim Cagle at $116,017.68, according to the Georgia Department of Education’s audits and accounts division’s fiscal year 2019 data.
Some of Sheriff’s main responsibilities included building operations and human resources.
“We will probably do some shifting around to fill that position for the remainder of the time,” Downs said. “We might fill another position, but the human resources position will probably be filled in-house and then do some other shifting around.”