Commission: Pittsburgh schools Superintendent Hamlet violated Ethics Act

Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Hamlet violated the state’s Ethics Act with regard to travel expenses, accepting cash for speeches and failing to make required disclosures of financial interests between 2016 and 2018, the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission said in a report issued Thursday.

At a news conference Thursday morning, Hamlet maintained that there were “no findings of intent to deceive the families, my staff and the taxpayers of Pittsburgh.”

“This is a great day for me personally as this two-year inquiry has been a cloud on my head, a heavy burden on my shoulders even though I know I have done nothing wrong,” Hamlet said. “With this review behind me, it looks like a fresh start.”

City Controller Michael Lamb, who initiated the investigation by reporting the failed financial disclosure to the ethics commission in 2019, saw things differently.

“This report confirms much of what we suspected,” Lamb said in a statement. “The Pittsburgh Board of Public Education must now make appropriate changes to leadership to allow the district to get back to the important business of focusing on student achievement. City families and children deserve nothing less.” Lamb also serves as controller for the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

The commission found Hamlet violated state Ethics Act by seeking travel expense reimbursements that had already been paid by the district; for misusing leave days and carrying them over from year-to-year, which isn’t allowed in his contract; for accepting money for speeches related to his position; and for “deficient” statements of financial disclosure in 2016, 2017 and 2018, according to a summary report posted on the ethics commission website. [Read the entire report here.]

Hamlet denied ethics violations relating to a April 2019 trip to Cuba aboard “The Flying Classroom” but agreed if the matter went to a hearing there was enough circumstantial evidence to find violations of the act, according to the ethics commission.

Hamlet was directed to pay $3,250 to the district for use in its Pittsburgh Promise program which pays college tuition for students; $750 to the ethics commission and another $1,000 to the commission, which represents a portion of the costs associated with the ethics investigation; and to forfeit 14 days of vacation time.

He also is required to file amended financial interest statements for 2016, 2017 and 2018, according to the commission.

Hamlet, through his attorney David Berardinelli, attributed the violations to clerical errors, lack of ethics training, and a clause in Hamlet’s contract that allowed him to receive pay for speeches although such compensation isn’t allowed by state law.

The district is changing its policies and administrators will receive ethics training to prevent future violations, Berardinelli said.

Hamlet was prevented by law from discussing the investigation with anyone before the report was released Thursday, Berardinelli said during the news conference.

But Ethics Commission Executive Director Rob Caruso said a 2010 case involving longtime Harrisburg-area activist Gene Stilp found that the subject of an ethics investigation, the person who made the complaint and those who are interviewed as part of a case have a First Amendment right to speak that overrides the commission’s confidentiality rules.

“We were under the belief that the process was completely confidential,” Berardinelli said Thursday afternoon. “The board knew the investigation was ongoing at that point in time. Several members of the board were interviewed as part of the investigation.”

Hamlet knew about the findings before the new contract was approved, Lamb said.

Because he filed the complaint, Lamb was kept updated of the commission’s investigation and he received a letter last August that noted the investigation was over and its findings were awaiting a response from Hamlet.

“At that point, he knew what the findings were,” Lamb said. “He may not have known what the penalty was.”

The ethics complaint was filed by Lamb in May 2019 because Hamlet didn’t provide statements of financial interests with the district for 2017 and 2018.

The school board approved a new 4-year contract with Hamlet on Aug. 26, 2021.

“I think that’s kind of telling,” Lamb said.

The contact set Hamlet’s salary at $236,350.86 this year. It will grow to $265,996.42 in 2025, according to the contract.

School board President Sylvia Wilson said the board was reviewing the ethics report. She declined to comment until they’d discussed the matter as a board.

“We want to be able to sit down and talk about it ourselves,” Wilson said.

Hamlet was hired as superintendent in 2016 to replace Linda Lane, who retired. Before he took office, Hamlet was dogged by controversy surrounding a resume he submitted for the job that was fraught with errors and contained three instances of plagiarism.

RELATED: Pittsburgh superintendent’s resume ‘fraught with errors,’ report says

A move by school board members Lynda Wrenn and Terry Kennedy to rescind Hamlet’s contract in light of the errors on his resume failed.

In 2019, then Pa. Auditor General Eugene DePasquale launched an investigation into district administrators’ travel expenses and its awarding of more than $10 million in no-bid contracts.

In April 2019, Hamlet and four other district administrators traveled to Cuba without school board approval aboard The Flying Classroom — a program aiming to improve students science, technology engineering and math skills.

The trip should have been approved by the school board, but wasn’t, DePasquale found.

RELATED: Auditor general accuses Pittsburgh schools of ‘runaway travel costs’ amid budget woes

When the school board gave Hamlet a new four-year contract public opinion was divided as the time as the board held two lengthy public hearings before approving the contract by a 7-2 vote with board members Sala Udin and William Gallagher voting against it.

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“I do not feel that it was right to renew his contract,” said Wrenn, the former president of the school board. “I wonder what it’s going to take for the school board to take any sort of action about this.”