Moss up for review, stands to get $33K annuity contribution this year

This story was corrected Sept. 28, 2016 to correct the annuity contribution Jeff Moss would receive upon a positive evaluation.

The Beaufort County school board will carry out its annual evaluation of superintendent Jeff Moss next month.

Board members may begin independently evaluating Moss after their regularly scheduled board meeting Oct. 4. The board will meet to discuss their feedback and create one review at a special-called meeting Oct. 6, chairwoman Mary Cordray said at Tuesday’s board meeting.

The board will schedule another meeting by Oct. 20 to present the final evaluation document to the superintendent.

The evaluations cover July 1 of the previous year through June 30 of the current year.

This year’s review includes Moss’ conduct from last fall, for which he admitted to two “unintentional and inadvertent” ethics violations this August. However, the board said at the time it would take no further action as a result of the South Carolina Ethics Commission’s investigation.

Moss’ employment and annual salary of $220,000 are not contingent on a positive evaluation. However, contributions to his annuity plan are, according to his contract.

This year, he stands to receive $33,000, a contribution of 15 percent of his salary, by Oct. 31.

In 2014, a year after he was hired on a five-year contract, the board chose to extend Moss’ contract to 2020.

The day before Thanksgiving last year, the board met behind closed doors for about six hours before announcing it rated Moss “proficient or higher with some areas in need of improvement.”

According to the evaluation, the board was pleased with Moss’ efforts to expand the district’s pre-K program and improve screening for volunteers who work in the schools and asked Moss to work on increasing high school graduation rates and to provide more opportunities for lower achieving students.

The board also had to automatically give Moss his 10-percent annuity contribution, $22,000, because the board exceeded its Oct. 20 deadline for finishing his evaluation.

A second statement released the same night indicated that members were satisfied with the way the board had handled a hiring scandal surrounding the brief employment of Moss’ wife to a district-level position in September 2015. The statement, which said no additional review was necessary, was released in part due to pressure from the public to evaluate Moss’ actions even though they occurred outside of the window for that year’s review.

This story was originally published September 22, 2016 at 4:18 PM with the headline "Moss up for review, stands to get $33K annuity contribution this year."