Conflict of interest?

Pain

I believe we have an conflict of interest with an administrative employee and need help on how to handle this. We are a private (and new) christian school housed in the basement of a local church. The school secretary is also the wife of the pastor, who we believe is keeping the church aware of our finances and what we do. She does the deposits but not the accounts payable. We are asked to pay additional for any rooms that we use (we believe she is making them aware of any room we use in the basement). The lease agreement is very vague on the uses of the room. We have not renewed her contract yet for this fiscal year, could we fire her without cause or for conflict of interest?

Down_the_Middle

I think you have to check with your local counsel. Your state law will determine whether you are permitted to de-employ her as an at-will employee. Based on the info provided, I'm struggling with what she has done wrong..............

As far as conflict of interest goes, I don't see the issue here. Normally conflict of interest issues are designed to protect the employer from adverse activities or ensure that no one personally prospers from business dealings and I'm unclear about what this person has allegedly done to expose the employer or personally prosper.

awilliams

Unless another law applies, you are able to fire an at-will employee for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all. You just cannot fire an employee for an illegal or discriminatory reason. As far as I know, pastors' wives are not a protected class under Title VII, so bring the ax down.