The Boston Water and Sewer Fee’s fired human sources director Marie Theodat was paid greater than $45,000 by the quasi-public company upon her termination.
The payout mirrored Theodat’s unused trip and private time, Fee spokesperson Dolores Randolph mentioned final Friday in response to a Herald public information request.
“As required by the Massachusetts Wage Act, Ms. Theodat received a payment of $45,093.59 for all accrued and unused vacation and personal time at the conclusion of her employment with the Commission,” Raldolph mentioned. “This payment is not a ‘buyout’ because the payment was required by law.”
Theodat was paid a $202,873 annual wage with the Water and Sewer Fee. She was fired on April 18 after having been on paid administrative depart since Dec. 2 of final 12 months, presumably permitting her to proceed to accrue paid time without work.
Theodat is embroiled in a number of civil lawsuits that embody fraud allegations and was the topic of three inner investigations commissioned by her ex-employer.
The Fee has not acknowledged a purpose for her termination, and mentioned in a previous information response that there was no severance settlement for Theodat.
Theodat was promoted simply final September by the Fee and given a elevate earlier in 2024, as a part of a 61% pay hike she had obtained since 2019.
Her promotion, from human sources director to chief human useful resource officer, got here after she was named as a defendant in a Suffolk Superior Courtroom lawsuit that alleges she labored with family to swindle her aged and dementia-ridden uncle out of his $1.1 million Dorchester residence.
The lawsuit, filed in August 2024 and first reported by the Herald final September, alleges Theodat “fraudulently induced” her uncle, the plaintiff Rodolphe St. Cloud, to signal over the deed to his longtime residence underneath the “guise” that he was signing paperwork associated to his medical care.
On the time, one other Superior Courtroom lawsuit had been pending towards Theodat, alleging that she stiffed a lady on a $75,000 mortgage mortgage. A jury final fall dominated in favor of the girl who filed go well with in 2020 towards Theodat, after a virtually weeklong trial, and ordered her to pay $72,000 to the plaintiff.
After each lawsuits got here to gentle, a trio of unions representing Water and Sewer Fee staff started pressuring the Fee to analyze and droop Theodat whereas the “severe” allegations leveled towards her in civil lawsuits performed out in courtroom.
The unions, SEIU Native 888, IAM Native 100 and OPEIU Native 6, despatched a letter to Henry Vitale, the Fee’s govt director, elevating issues about Theodat’s “personal access to sensitive information such as banking numbers, routing information” and social safety numbers.
A few week earlier than Theodat’s termination, the Fee launched public information to the Herald, in response to a information request and enchantment, that exposed the Fee had paid for 3 separate investigations into its ex-HR director.
The investigations included “allegations of misconduct,” the Fee mentioned in a information response final month.
Practically $30,000 was billed to the Fee in August and December 2024 for 2 investigations of an undisclosed nature, carried out by two separate regulation companies. One inner investigation into Theodat was additionally carried out by the Fee, at a price that was not disclosed by the quasi-public company, information present.
