Formal Complaint re: Fiscal Concerns Submitted to Bandon School Board January 12, 2026
DESCRIPTION OF COMPLAINT
Introduction
There is a growing and well-documented lack of public trust in the management and governance of the Bandon School District (BSD). Since August 2025, the Bandon School Board has received multiple formal complaints from parents, community members and current and former employees about district leadership, and the district is currently subject to a Level 5 union grievance and an Unfair Labor Practices lawsuit (for documentation of formal complaints and public input to the Bandon School Board since early 2025, see the community advocacy website www.bsdbetter.org).
Of significant concern is the opacity of BSD’s budget documents, which do not transparently disclose the Superintendent’s total annual compensation. While adopted salaries are published, publicly available budget books do not clearly delineate additional stipends, supplemental contracts, leave payouts, or other disbursements. In most fiscal years since 2021–22 the Superintendent’s actual compensation has exceeded the adopted salary, without sufficient public explanation.
Community concern has been heightened by findings from a December 2023 Accountability Audit issued by the Washington State Auditor regarding Almira School District No. 17, where the current BSD Superintendent previously served in the same role. The Washington State Auditor explicitly concluded that adequate safeguards were not in place to prevent fraud, loss, or abuse of public resources. These findings have deepened public concerns about the leadership, transparency, internal controls, and appropriate use of public funds at BSD.
This formal complaint provides a synopsis of the Almira audit findings, summarizes pertinent BSD budget information since 2021, and urgently requests a performance audit of the Bandon School District by the Oregon Secretary of State. It also requests that the Superintendent be placed on immediate administrative leave until the performance audit results are available.
The Almira Audit: A Lack of Adequate Controls to Safeguard Public Resources
In 2023 the Office of the Washington State Auditor released an Accountability Audit Report for Almira School District No. 17 where Ms. Schmerer previously served as Superintendent before coming to the Bandon School District. The report states that district “Management is responsible for ensuring compliance and adequate safeguarding of public resources from fraud, loss or abuse.” Their audit determined that “The District did not have adequate controls in place to ensure payments to the Superintendent were appropriate.” As a result, the Superintendent received outsized and potentially fraudulent payments in her role as Superintendent, including a 36.9% raise in one year and sick leave payouts totaling over $75,000 during the four-month period before she left Almira.
The full report can be accessed at: https://portal.sao.wa.gov/ReportSearch/Home/ViewReportFile?arn=1033783&isFinding=false&sp=false
Key Findings:
At that time, the Almira School District served approximately 83 students, kindergarten through twelfth grade in one school building.
The district operated on an annual budget of approximately $3.6 million for the 2021/2022 school year.
According to payroll reports, the district paid Ms. Schmerer $147,153 in the 2019/2020 school year and $201,476 in the 2020/2021 school year. These salary figures represent both an enormous percent increase year-to-year, and an unusually high salary for such a small district, categorically disproportionate to the number of students served (see Chart A below for comparisons).
The Superintendent was allowed a maximum accrual of 96 hours of sick leave per year and 1440 hours total. However, the Superintendent was allocated additional sick leave beyond the 96-hour maximum: 32 additional hours in 2019 and 336 additional hours in 2021.
The audit discovered contradictory records of sick leave payouts: Paystubs showed 1574 hours of sick leave were paid (exceeding the 1440 hour maximum) but leave accrual reports show 1385 hours of sick leave were paid.
In the four months between February 2021 and her departure from the Almira District in June of 2021, the Superintendent received $75,986.10 in seven separate sick leave payouts. These payments were presented to the 5-member school board for approval, but the “board did not have a process in place to adequately review them before payment.”
Three different rates were used to calculate the payouts of sick leave - $28.85, $38.75 and $75.00 – none of which were consistent with the Superintendent’s regular pay rate.
The Superintendent’s business manager at Almira was a close personal friend who left Almira in August of 2022 and is now the Bandon High School fiscal secretary.
The Almira school burned to the ground in October 2021 a few months after Ms. Schmerer moved to the Bandon School District, destroying all physical and digital records. The audit explains that “[District] Management is … responsible for the integrity and retention of the District’s original supporting documentation for employee contracts and disbursements.” The fact that records were not safely backed up to the cloud or to an external server demonstrates negligence by district management. Without original records, the state auditor “could not verify the District’s disbursements including payroll and supplemental contracts during the audit period complied with all requirements and were valid and reasonable.”
Chart A: Comparison of Superintendent salaries, enrollment and annual budget at a sample of small Washington school districts 2020-21.*
Sources: Washington State Auditor Accountability Audit Report for Almira School District No. 17; Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction School Apportionment and Financial Services School District Personnel Summary Profiles—2020–21 Final: https://ospi.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/2022-12/tbl15.pdf
*Of note, the OSPI 2020–21 Table 15 personnel summary referenced above shows $0 salary reported for Almira in the superintendent category. The state audit released December 2023 later revealed that the Superintendent was paid $201,476 that year. It is unclear why that salary data was not reported to or by OSPI and only later became known via the Washington State Auditor.
Discussion of Audit Findings:
These findings are concerning for multiple reasons. Based on data available from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI, https://ospi.k12.wa.us):
On average, Superintendent salaries typically comprise 0.1% to 0.5% of total school budget. In small, rural districts the Superintendent’s salary can comprise a slightly larger share of the budget, from 0.8% to 2.5%, due to fixed administrative costs being higher relative to total revenue.
State auditors, school boards, and Superintendent contract studies generally view <0.5% of the school budget as normal and defensible. Superintendent salaries comprising greater than 1% of the budget are not automatically considered improper but may draw heightened scrutiny.
Superintendent Schmerer’s salary of $201,476 at Almira comprised an unprecedented 6% of the total annual budget in 2020/21, three to six times higher than “normal.”
The 2023 state audit clearly points out that adequate controls were not in place at Almira to prevent fraud, loss or abuse of public funds.
Presumably, had this information been publicly available when Ms. Schmerer was being vetted for the Superintendent position at Bandon School District it would have merited serious investigation by the hiring committee at that time.
Current Context: Bandon School District
When she arrived at the Bandon School District, Superintendent Schmerer’s adopted starting salary was $125,000.00 for the 2021/2022 school year, a 13.88% increase ($15,240.00) over former Superintendent Ardiana’s adopted salary for 2020/2021. Overall, the Superintendent has received an average pay increase of 8.19% annually (see Chart B below). The publicly available data from the BSD budget books does not clearly delineate or describe additional stipends, special funds, sick pay, vacation pay, or supplemental disbursements or contracts for the Superintendent. In every year except 2021/22 the Superintendent’s actual salary exceeded the adopted salary by between $6,804 and $14,916 without sufficient public explanation.
Meanwhile, certified teachers have received a flat 3% salary increase per year, until 2025 when a new 3-year contract was signed. Note that teacher salary increases have not kept pace with the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) since 2019/2020 (see Chart C below); salaries were the second lowest of any district on the Southcoast; and teachers’ wages have been rapidly outpaced by rising housing costs in Bandon (see https://bandonbeafaq.com/ for detailed information on contract negotiation proposals, BSD budget analysis, and local cost of living data). During teacher contract negotiations the Superintendent repeatedly denied Bandon Education Association’s (BEA) wage increase proposals because she insisted that the budget could not support the suggested pay increase, a claim that was refuted through budget analysis and later corrected by the BSD business manager.
In July 2025 the Superintendent reversed course and agreed to BEA’s proposal during mediation. A new contract was signed in August 2025, but by then the Superintendent had lost a measurable amount of public trust due to the hostile, retaliatory and intimidating actions she took towards teachers during contract negotiations.
Chart B: Bandon School District Superintendent Salary Data 2020-2026
As community concern about district leadership increased in 2025, numerous former employees came forward to describe instances of pay inequity, labor violations and ethical misconduct they experienced or witnessed during their employment under Superintendent Schmerer. Various employees were promised pay raises, compensatory time off, overtime pay, and/or sick leave accrual and were later denied these things or had them revoked by the Superintendent. At the same time, the adopted salary for Superintendent increased over 40% since 2021/22 and the current Superintendent’s expenses for out-of-district travel have substantially exceeded historical norms for the district.
Chart C: Percent Increase in COLA, Certified Teacher Salary, Superintendent Salary
Additionally, there is concern that - like the Almira School District - the Bandon School District currently suffers from a similar lack of adequate internal controls and board oversight to ensure that public resources are being managed appropriately:
A former business manager recounted in a November 2025 formal complaint to the Board that the Superintendent told her on multiple occasions that she “needed her Business Manager to be her best friend,” mirroring circumstances at the Almira School District when Ms. Schmerer served as Superintendent there.
Superintendent Schmerer has recruited and hired close personal associates to fill positions at BSD and then compensated them at preferential rates, suggesting potential misuse of funds through favoritism.
It is public knowledge that the Superintendent is close friends with multiple school board members, including the Board Chair. At least one formal complaint has been filed to the Board and two more to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission about potential conflicts of interest due to close personal friendships between the Superintendent and board members.
The board has demonstrated weak oversight of the Superintendent and has failed to adequately respond to community concerns. At least nine formal complaints have been submitted to the Board since August – ten counting this one - yet public concerns have still not been meaningfully addressed.
Conclusion
This convergence of past and present evidence cannot be ignored. There has been a sustained pattern of corrupted behavior by the Superintendent during her time at BSD (as documented by multiple formal complaints, grievances and lawsuits); the Almira audit provides official documentation of financial mismanagement and potential fraud by the Superintendent at her former district; and there is a demonstrated pattern of weak oversight from the school board. In this current moment of eroded public trust, it is more important than ever that the district commit to full financial transparency so that taxpayers, voters, teachers, parents and students can know if our public dollars are being managed ethically and appropriately. The public has a right to understand how our limited school funds are being spent.
WHO SHOULD WE TALK TO AND WHAT EVIDENCE SHOULD WE CONSIDER?
All Board members should read the Almira Audit in its entirety. Additionally, the board should:
Interview BSD business managers, current and former.
Request a report on all payouts to the Superintendent from 2021-present, including but not limited to: salary, stipends, bonuses, benefits, sick time, vacation time.
Interview former employees who have described concerns about financial mismanagement to better understand the depth and breadth of the issue within the district.
SUGGESTED RESOLUTION
The District Office should immediately make public (without need for a public records request) all financial records pertaining to Superintendent Shauna Schmerer’s compensation since 2021, including:
All paystubs/payouts to the Superintendent including but not limited to: salary, stipends, bonuses, benefits, sick time, vacation time, and any other compensation
Annual and multi-year contracts
Contract renewals, extensions, modifications, and any temporary agreements
Salary increases or decreases
Cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs)
Stipends, bonuses, or incentive pay
Changes to benefits, leave, or contract duration
2. Bandon School District should undergo an official performance audit by the Oregon Secretary of State, with particular attention to district-level administrative compensation, internal financial controls, and board oversight practices from fiscal year 2021–22 to the present to determine:
Whether BSD has adequate internal controls and board oversight to ensure that Superintendent compensation and administrative expenditures are appropriate, authorized, and transparent.
Whether public funds have been used in compliance with applicable laws, contracts, and policies.
Whether BSD’s budgeting and reporting practices provide sufficient transparency to allow the public to understand how administrative compensation and benefits are determined and paid.
Whether governance practices at BSD effectively safeguard public resources from misuse, abuse, or favoritism.
3. Superintendent Shauna Schmerer should be placed on immediate administrative leave until the performance audit is complete to prevent potential interference with the audit process.