TodayEx-secretary may get $8,500
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Article RatingFormer South Newton Township secretary Tammy Sipes may get $8,500 from the township's insurance carrier in the settlement agreement between her and supervisors Ron Bouch and Tom Bixler.
"She got what she wanted," says her attorney, Ron Turo. "It worked out for her very nicely."
He says the negotiated figure, which insurance company Penn Prime Trust will pay, more than covers six months' worth of lost income and fees she paid to sue the two supervisors. "It represents an excess of the money she lost plus all her legal fees."
Turo estimates Sipes' yearly salary at about $10,000.
She was suspended with pay in June 2002 and paid until the end of last year, Bouch says.
Turo says gaining a huge settlement wasn't important for his client. "This wasn't about money for Tammy. It was about what is right and what is wrong."
He commends her for sticking with the suit for the months it dragged on. "She was successful in hanging in there on a very important matter."
Sipes filed the suit in July 2002.
No fault admitted
Bouch and Bixler approved the agreement with conditions at a public meeting Tuesday. But they say it is not yet final.
"We have not signed the agreement yet, pending the confirmation of the conditions," Bouch said this morning. He would not provide details about the conditions.
Township Solicitor Linus Fenicle and Penn Prime Trust attorney Steven Ludwig could not be reached for comment.
The fact that the two supervisors do not admit fault in the settlement is not a defeat for Sipes, Turo says. "They never do admit fault. But them writing the check, what does that say?"
The settlement does not include Sipes' other two conditions - that she be reinstated as secretary and that Bouch and Bixler be suspended.
But she still is pleased with the agreement, Turo says.
Bouch will leave office in December, since he lost his bid for re-election in May's primary to Dave McBeth.
Bixler will continue to work as a supervisor in 2004.
Turo says Sipes will not comment until she receives the settlement check.
She filed suit against the pair of supervisors under the whistleblower act after being suspended for alleged involvement in the April 2002 petition to remove Bouch from office and for testifying before the state Ethics Commission regarding Bouch and Bixler.
Sipes also alleged that Bouch had harassed her.
The whistleblower law provides that a government body cannot discharge or retaliate against an employee because that employee made a good-faith report to an appropriate authority concerning alleged wrongdoing or waste.
