I am planning on pursuing MY dreams in a few months. When terms expire and election season comes there will be two board members who won't receive my vote.

Well holy cow, if I had only known an employee could do this. I'm going to ask my employer for paid time off so that I too, can "pursue my dreams".

Dream on folks....!! At taxpayer expense

Why does it have to be the board that did something unsavory, Garrow could be the unsavory one here!!

Makes you wonder if he is being paid to keep quiet about something unsavory done by the board

We, the taxpayers, are being ripped off. Mr. Garrow, very sorry about your father. However, you have a duty to the students of our district and the taxpayers who pay you. You are allowed to fall completely apart and have your mid-life crisis-just not on the taxpayers back. This is an outrage! Go follow your dreams on your own dime. Life is indeed short, and you come up way short on ethical behavior.

Rob Roy's term expires in 2013. There is only one other member who also expires in 2013. A majority are set for expiration in 2014.
It almost feels like we in Milton are just sitting ducks for these board folks. The best we can do is ensure Roy doesn't return to the board as well as a few others as their terms expire and they come up for reelection. It is a shame what is happening. A low down shame and all at the hands of a board who appears to have lost their minds.

Let's see .... $120,000 salary plus $27,385 fringe .... divided by 12 months .... that's $12,282 PER MONTH .... WOW

Citizens of Milton: How can we stand to have this done to us? Paying someone 100K+ to grieve is pretty ridiculous.

Mike Garrow: I know your an administrator but you may considering teaching. How to swindle a small school district 101. Good work.

Rob Roy and fellow board members: After careful thought and 6 meetings THIS is your solution? Hopefully you can find something else to do on Monday nights next year.

So much to say yet nothing worth mentioning. We all know how ridiculous this is however it seems Milton is at the mercy of an irresponsible school board president and an absentee superintendent who is grieving and pursuing his dreams on Milton's dime for the next 8 months. Way to go, Rob Roy.

He was here last year, too, but I can't imagine he saved up that much paid time off! And I don't think administrators (like superintendants) are unionized, but they do have some protective clauses in their contracts. Yes, since we don't know "who" is the person where the buck stops right now, but everything is moving along, I don't really feel like paying for another one at the same time, either.

WOW.! What punishment? A "paid UNION vacation"

He started in July...and has been on leave since mid-October, shouldn't there be some sort of MINIMUM requirement to fulfill ones contract? He does not deserve to be bought out of his contract or to be paid this type of leave. Garrow gets to add to his resume of experience, and he has done nothing but basically accept the position, collect the pay, and move on. If someone on that school board doesnt step up and make some noise, they all can forget another term! They have lost any respect from my household. Oh, and p.s. forget the "interim".... we have done just fine without Garrow this far, just hire for next year and save us what money you can!

I think most of the comments miss the boat here. Who is it that negotiated a contract that would permit this? That's who has explaining to do and who needs to go.

Something OTHER than a death in the family MUST be causing him to be gone. I wonder what it could be?

Now taxpayers will have to pay for Garrow's "under study" until the end of the school year. Happy, happy, joy, joy! NOT!

Looks to me like the board wants him gone, but they don't have enough evidence to fire him so they're negoatiating a settlement.

My husband died in September, and I missed 14 school days. Did I go back too soon? In some ways I would say yes, in others...no. I needed to get back to a part of my daily routine, plus I missed my students and knew that they needed to see that I WAS coming back. My days missed were paid, but were taken out of my sick days of which over the course of 24 years in my district I have accumulated 165 days. There are posters on another blog about this same issue who said I should not have been paid. I agree that 8 months is a lot and after a certain point these should be unpaid....that's what would have happened to me after another week gone. I also believe that this man is NOT coming back with his comment about pursuing dreams. He needs to just resign so the Milton School District can move on. The school board seems to have caved in to this man. Good luck to the stakeholders in the education of Milton students.

I would say Rob Roy didn't make the statement before because he knew we would all blow a gasket. As incensed as I am, I am not at all surprised because, if Garrow WASN'T being paid, the Board would have come right out and said so at the time. For the moment, to keep my blood pressure down, I will wait until the open records request has been fulfilled because I do think that this has to do with performance and that there probably are some requirements in the contract regarding when and for how long he could get paid under specific circumstances. But we had better get straight answers, and they better come as fast as legally permitted. I can only imagine what kind of doodah Garrow will spew in his rebuttal, considering how he wants to pursue his dreams and considers our children to be commodities.

Keep sticking with that 47% lie that Romney came up with.
It seems to be working so well for the Republican party.

Why doesn't the Milton School District buy out Garrow's contract so he can move on and chase his dreams in a different school district? This way the Milton district could start to look for a new superintendent and all could move on!

I'm tellin' ya...the guy is not coming back. Why do taxpayers have to pay for someone not working? Especially for 8 MONTHS!! Oh wait...we already do; the 47% Romney talked about! Good job or no job, apparently we get stuck 'footing the bill' no matter what.

As a Milton taxpayer, I am outraged. We've all lost parents and we don't need eight months to be able to move on and certainly would not expect an employer to keep paying us during that time. If he needs the time, fine, but why do we have to pay him? I don't think it's unreasonable to expect him to 'pursue his dreams' on his own time. Eight months pay and no work . . . great gig if you can get it.