Part of former schools chief's severance frozen in divorce dispute

A $320,000 severance package given to former Mukilteo schools Superintendent Gary Toothaker after it was learned he had a personal relationship with a district employee has become a sticking point in his divorce.

On Dec. 4, a Snohomish County court commissioner granted Julie Toothaker's request that nearly $200,000 of her estranged husband's severance package be frozen until after their July divorce trial. The commissioner also ordered that proceeds from the sale of the couple's Edmonds house be added to the frozen account.

Gary Toothaker, 61, will continue to receive monthly severance payments of nearly $16,000 through June, but two installments of $96,355.50 each he was to get next July 1 and on Jan. 5, 2004, will be held in an interest-bearing account until the case is decided.

"My severance pay is all I have to live on except for about $1,000-a-month retirement income," Toothaker wrote in a motion seeking a reversal of the court commissioner's ruling. "I strongly object to Julie's attempt, contrary to her promise to me, to take away my future separate income."

Toothaker wrote that his estranged wife is receiving income from her job teaching in the Snohomish School District and that finding another superintendent position would be difficult because of his age and "the intense public controversy over my early contract termination."

Julie Toothaker said in court documents that when she resigned from her teaching position in Montana and moved to Washington state, she worked "intermittently" and had planned to rely on her husband's salary. Her current teaching job pays about $2,000 a month.

Gary Toothaker's attorney downplayed the significance of the battle over the severance package.

"Any amount of money is a common issue in a divorce," said Ann Johnson, an Edmonds lawyer. "None of this is particularity out of the ordinary. In divorces people look at what assets and income are available."

Toothaker was pressured to resign from the superintendent job in October after the Mukilteo School Board learned he had a personal relationship with Tracy Van Winkle, who at the time was principal of Mariner High School. Van Winkle, 48, has since been transferred to the district's headquarters office on regulatory issues related to disabled students.

The severance package given to Toothaker has angered many in the Mukilteo School District who complain the money should be going toward students. Because district and state policies don't forbid relationships between school administrators and their subordinates, the district had no grounds to fire Toothaker.

Toothaker, who had worked as a superintendent in Oklahoma, Ohio, Colorado and Montana before he was hired in Mukilteo more than six years ago, met his future wife while she was a teacher in Helena, Mont. They were married in 1991. The Toothakers separated Aug. 3, and he filed for divorce Nov. 12, according to court records.

The couple's divorce trial is scheduled July 30.

Jennifer Sullivan: 425-783-0604 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com.