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Gildemar Herrera: I was "wrongfully dismissed."
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) has fired Local 3144 President Gildemar Herrera after a months-long investigation into a $6 million cybersecurity theft concluded that she “failed in the performance of her duties” as the city school district’s information technology director.
NHPS Supt. Madeline Negrón confirmed the termination of Herrera’s employment in an email comment provided to the Independent on Tuesday.
Herrera, who led a municipal union that represents more than 400 city and public school district management and professional workers, told the Independent that she was “wrongfully dismissed” in a separate phone interview Tuesday. She declined to comment further on her dismissal.
Herrera’s firing comes roughly seven months after she and NHPS’s senior I.T. information specialist were placed on paid administrative leave for what the district’s spokesperson described at the time as “performance-related concerns.” Her termination also comes more than a year after a cyberattack saw hackers steal more than $6 million of city funds, most of which were meant to pay for New Haven school buses.
“Ms. Herrera was dismissed following a lengthy administrative investigation which commenced in response to the evaluation of the New Haven Public Schools Information Technology Department by an outside cyber security firm, hired after the breach of email which culminated in significant financial loss to the Board of Education,” Negrón said. “The school district concluded that, among other things, Ms. Herrera failed in the performance of her duties as Director of Information Technology.”
In a separate email comment, Mayor Justin Elicker pointed out that the city has recovered or is scheduled to recover roughly $5.1 million of the stolen $6 million.
He also noted that the city and NHPS “have taken many steps to strengthen our systems” in the wake of the June 2023 “business email compromise.” That includes hiring a chief technology officer “to strengthen collaboration between the city, NHPS and other IT functions to improve our cybersecurity posture,” as well as the hiring of “outside experts that have reviewed our cybersecurity and financial procedures and are working with the City and NHPS to implement these improvements.”
“The police investigation into this matter remains ongoing,” the mayor concluded, “and we are hopeful that the criminals involved in this theft will be held accountable and brought to justice.”
A Local 3144 union representative did not respond to a request for comment about Herrera’s termination and about who now is leading the union.