The news of the Newburgh School District’s settlement with disgraced Superintendent Roberto Padilla raises nine questions and a comment.

1. What was Dr. Padilla’s reason for resigning, if “there was no wrongdoing”?

2. Why did the Board give him a raise of $30K/year and extend his contract through 2026 when a grand jury found he was overseeing a district with “systemic failures”?

3. Why are we paying him $279K/year for two more years of non-work? Could it be that he, in exchange, is doing something for us? If that “something” is turning in his resignation, well ... see Question #1.

4. What was “misinformed” in our local newspapers’ stories on his disappearance since last August? I read them all and believe that our reporters’ only problem was that Padilla and the Board members all clammed up and wouldn’t talk to them.

5. Is the district still using the APEX system to raise the grades of athletes? If not, what has replaced it, and how is it working?

6. Is Padilla still treasurer of the Council of School Superintendents? If so, they should be ashamed.

7. About the two investigators we taxpayers hired, who the agreement says reached “inconsistent conclusions”: What were those conclusions? Did each one decide there was not enough evidence to find him guilty or not-guilty, or did one find him guilty and the other, not-guilty?

8. Why were two investigators hired at all, instead of the School Board just accepting the recommendations of the first one?

9. Is this the same School Board that rehired the basketball coach who was at the center of the athletes’ non-attendance scandal?

And finally, a comment about the group Padilla founded, the NYS Assn. of Latino Administrators and Superintendents. Did anyone else notice that its acronym is “NYS, ALAS?”