Seneca superintendent resigns after ethics violations

The Seneca Board of Education today unanimously accepted the resignation of Superintendent Steve Wilmoth, who never told the Board of Education (or the Missouri Ethics Commission) about the $5,000 a month he was making as a "consultant" for a company that he convinced the school to hire.

The story was broken earlier today by Editor Chad Hayworth of the Newton County News, who also was the one who initially revealed Wilmoth's ethical problems.

The board had voted to suspend him on April 22 and would have had a termination hearing if Wilmoth had not resigned.

From the Newton County News account, which can be found on its Facebook page:

Wilmoth's ouster came two months after he first told his bosses about a deal he struck with the Missouri Ethics Commission on Feb. 13, in which he admitted to secretly taking money from Ombudsman Educational Services while guiding the Seneca district to hired the company and then failing to disclose those payments to state regulators.

In a consent order signed in February by Wilmoth and James Khlar, the Ethics Commission's executive director, Wilmoth admitted to signing a contract with Ombudsman to work as a “business development liaison” for $5,000 a month less than two weeks after he was hired in Seneca in February 2011.

In the fall of 2011, Wilmoth guided the board toward hiring Ombudsman to provide the district's alternative education services, but never disclosed to his bosses that he was taking money from the company.

Wilmoth's secret job wasn't discovered until February 2012, when a district employee caught him working on a company-owned computer.

Wilmoth quit Ombudsman shortly thereafter, the consent order shows.

Wilmoth was fined $55,000 for his ethics violations, but the fine was reduced to $8,250, on conditions he pay immediately and have no further ethics troubles for two years.