Paycheck From Prison… Not For Long

A News Five investigation has lawmakers promising change.
Charlene Schmitz, 55, is sitting in a jail cell and still collecting a check from the Washington County School District.
Schmitz was sentenced Monday to ten years in federal prison for using a computer to make sexual advances on a 14 year old student, who was also her daughter's boyfriend.
Alabama's Teacher Tenure Act, which was amended by state lawmakers in 2004, forbids local school board's from firing a teacher until they are given an arbitrary hearing on the state level.
In Schmitz's case, that can't happen until after she faces state charges of rape and sodomy in a trial set to begin next November.
Schmitz will also continue to receive her $51,666 a year salary until she exhausts all her criminal appeals.
The victim's mother, Donna Marks, says the legal loophole is outrageous.
"This is a complete let down. An utterly complete let down," says Marks. "There are good teachers out there right now losing their jobs because there's no money to pay them, but they're going to pay someone that has been federally convicted and sentenced?"
We took Mark's concern to lawmakers, including Mobile Senator Rusty Glover-R. Glover, who was a member of the House of Representatives when the measure passed, insists this was not the way the law was meant to be used.
"This was a very comprehensive package that was passed and there may be some parts of it that have moved us in the right direction, but apparently there are some problems," said Glover. "This is a major problem," he said.
Even the bill's author, Rep. Terry Spicer, tells News Five he never intended for a teacher to collect a paycheck from prison.
Spicer, a democrat from Enterprise, says he will work with lawmakers to eliminate the loophole.
"I think it will certainly be the responsibility of the Alabama legislature to look at that immediately," said Spricer. "I certainly don't think any teacher or any person, be it teacher or state employee, should have the right to sit in jail and collect any type of state funding or state paycheck."