North Andover's School Committee is paying the price for secrecy.

The School Committee is suing former assistant superintendent Richard Bergeron, alleging he tricked a clerk in the payroll department into overpaying him by $4,484. The amount is equivalent to two week's pay for Bergeron's position as assistant superintendent.

Interim Superintendent James Marini said in September that Bergeron had volunteered to return the overpayment. That statement, apparently, is no longer operational.

Bergeron, now superintendent of the Contoocook Valley School District in New Hampshire, says there was no overpayment. In fact, Bergeron told reporter J.J. Huggins that North Andover owes him "a substantial amount" of money that he had been willing to forgo. But now Bergeron says he's prepared to prove to a judge that the school district owes him while he also defends his reputation against "untrue and unfair attacks on my professional ethics and credibility."

Looks like this might be an expensive legal battle for the taxpayers of North Andover. Amazingly, the School Committee has managed to generate a controversy out of the amicable departure of a school official who was well-liked and respected.

The whole mess began when the School Committee tried to grant financial rewards to Bergeron in secret at the same time it was asking taxpayers to pass a Proposition 21/2 override to fund a school system in dire fiscal straits.

Former Acting Superintendent Daniel O'Connor's contract expired June 15, leaving the school system without a superintendent for the final two weeks of the school year.

In a telephone discussion in June, members of the School Committee decided to make Bergeron acting superintendent for the final two weeks of the year. The district attorney's office later ruled that was a violation of the state's Open Meeting Law.

According to the School Committee's lawsuit, Bergeron's pay was to have been increased from $2,242 to $3,200 per week for the final two weeks of the year. The lawsuit alleges that Bergeron sent an e-mail to a payroll employee that he was to be paid $3,200 extra for each of those two weeks. The department paid Bergeron $6,400 for the two weeks plus his old salary of $4,484.

Bergeron counters that he was to be paid both salaries and says that $3,200 a week was too little to be paid for doing two administrative jobs.

It's impossible to predict what a court will rule, but Bergeron's claims certainly reflect poorly on him. Is he really contending that, as compensation for "holding down the fort" as acting superintendent for a mere two weeks, he was entitled to $3,200 a week plus his regular salary as assistant superintendent? Bergeron wants us to believe that this minimal extra effort was worth being paid at a rate that amounts to $282,984 per year?

As it was Bergeron earned $136,214 between July 2006 and July 2007. That included $6,000 in "merit pay" for serving as interim superintendent from April 2006 to June 30, 2006, and the raise the committee gave him in late June. It also included money for unused vacation time and 13 days that he worked in July.

This lawsuit revolves around who said what to whom. Since the whole affair was conducted in secret, it's the committee's word against Bergeron's.

Had the School Committee named Bergeron acting superintendent in a public meeting - as required by law - and stated publicly what he was to be paid for this service, there would be no lawsuit today. Nor would there be the expense of fighting this legal battle, nor the harsh words against a well-liked former employee, nor another newspaper editorial criticizing the School Committee for once again failing the citizens of North Andover.

Maybe someday, the North Andover School Committee will figure these things out and do the public's business where it belongs - in public.