by Maya McFadden The New Haven independent
Gildemar Herrera has returned to her job as the city school district’s information technology director and made a presentation to the Board of Education after an arbitrator found that New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) was wrong to fire her following a months-long city investigation into a $6 million cybersecurity theft.
Herrera — who is also the president of Local 3144, a municipal union that represents more than 400 city and public school district management and professional workers — was fired on Sept. 3, 2024.
Her first day back on the job was Sept. 2 of this year.
The district fired Herrera for allegedly failing to perform her job duties in the runup to a 2023 cyberattack that saw hackers steal more than $6 million of city funds, most of which were meant to pay for New Haven school buses. Herrera long maintained that she was “wrongfully dismissed.”
According to city spokesperson Lenny Speiller, the city has recovered $5.175 million of the total $6 million that were stolen.
“The union felt that the termination of Gilda Herrera was without cause and that is the case that we presented to an arbitrator,” AFSCME Local 3144 Staff Representative Patrick Sampson told the Independent in an interview Wednesday. (Herrera declined to comment for this story, directing this reporter instead to Sampson.)
After Herrera was terminated by the public school district she engaged in a contractually protected grievance arbitration process and was reinstated by the arbitrator, which was provided through the American Arbitration Association (AAA).
Click here to read the full decision by Arbitrator Joseph M. Celentano. Celentano wrote in the decision that the city and the Board of Education “did not have just cause” to fire Herrera. It called her testimony “credible” and her termination “arbitrary, unreasonable, and not based on the facts presented.”
Mayor Justin Elicker said in a Tuesday statement to the Independent that he is “disappointed” in the arbitrator’s decision and continues to believe Herrera’s dismissal was “appropriate and justified.” He also said that “we must respect and abide by the arbitrator’s ruling.”
“Following a lengthy administrative investigation and outside independent investigation,” Elicker continued, “the City of New Haven and New Haven Public Schools determined that Ms. Herrera’s actions and inactions left our schools’ IT systems vulnerable and Ms. Herrera was not truthful on these matters. Since that time, New Haven Public Schools has significantly strengthened its IT systems and safeguards, established a much closer working relationship with the City’s IT department, and will continue to remain vigilant against new and evolving threats.”
Sampson, the Local 3144 union representative, said it is “disappointing” that, rather than wishing Herrera the best and welcoming her back to her job — or even staying neutral on the matter — the mayor and superintendent are instead “doubling down in almost saying that the arbitrator was wrong, when this is a process that the city and union agreed to.”
“I just think it’s wrong that they further besmirch her character,” Sampson concluded.
He added that, usually, appealing a termination decision goes to the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration (SBMA) unless either of the parties opts to use the AAA and foots the full cost. He noted that the filing fee through the SBMA cost $200 while the filing fee through the AAA is $375 plus the arbitrator’s daily rate, which he said can range from $1,800 to $2,800 a day depending on the arbitrator’s rate.
“The city opted to use AAA,” Sampson said. “But still they refuse to acknowledge that they attempted to ruin this woman’s life by blaming her for something that other male administrators, supervisors, managers, directors, were responsible for.”
Sampson said that the school district’s previous chief operating officer, Tom Lamb, “was solely responsible for allowing that phishing to occur because he used his personal device and not the device issued by the IT department at the Board of Ed.” Sampson also blamed former city Budget Director Michael Gormany, who was also acting city controller at the time, as he was “in charge of finances at the city [and] was responsible for actually sending money and approving the funds.”
Sampson said that Herrera still has a pending complaint with the state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) that accuses the city and school district of illegal discrimination or retaliation.
“Justin is lying,” Sampson said about the mayor. “The arbitration said it was clear that the independent investigation did not blame Gilda for what happened.”
Meanwhile, Herrera has continued her work as head of the district’s IT department.
On Monday, she presented two purchase orders to the Board of Education Finance and Operations Committee during a Zoomed online-only meeting.
The first purchase order costs $106,250, and is for Google Workspace for the Education Plus program to provide educators with tools to run digital classrooms, monitor student work, a plagiarism scanner, and communicate with students in their Google Classrooms.
The second purchase order costs $83,866.77 and is for IT Savvy, a program that allows the school district to send fake phishing emails to staff in order to help school leaders figure out who needs better training on how to avoid potential cyberattacks. The city already uses this program, as well.
The “interactive training” through email, Herrera said, will help staff to know what to look for and the district to train staff further. “Dependent on what your action is, if you click on it, if you open it, or if you actually report it to IT, a report will be given to us to let us know who is actually opening and who is the group that we need to teach,” she said at Monday’s meeting.
The school board committee voted in support of both purchase orders, sending them along to the full Board of Education for a final vote.