What You Can Do To Help – David Mealor

Dear David,

You negotiated a deal with UCF to be paid 30 percent of your salary while you were doing full time work as a lawmaker. Because of a “bad and embarrassing error,” you were actually paid 100 percent of your UCF salary. This resulted in overpayments to you of about 100K. Currently, you are making monthly repayments until 2013.

There’s a question that you have never had to answer. Did you know that you were being overpaid? Either you were too stupid to notice that you were being paid for two jobs when you were only doing one, or you decided to not notice because you love money. Which is it, David? Are you unethical or stupid? My guess is that you are both unethical and stupid. Because of a lack of ethics you didn’t report the overpayments, but you weren’t smart enough to avoid pissing someone off so bad that you were busted.

Here’s what you can do to help. Repent! You are a very religious person who has encouraged prayer in professional situations where it is not remotely appropriate. I’d like you to admit to your Lord and the community that you knowingly let yourself be overpaid.

I want to end this letter on a positive note, David. I think if you really work at it, you can do an acceptable job in the classroom. Your penance is that you need to quit your do-nothing job as an administrator and go back to teaching.

Sincerely,
Arthur Barnhouse