Today, July 31, 2026, marks the formal end of Karen Molinar’s tenure with Fort Worth Independent School District.1 Her resignation takes effect at 11:59 p.m., closing the chapter that began with her appointment in March 2025 and effectively ended when the Texas Education Agency (TEA) intervened. Taxpayers are left covering a separation package that includes a full year of salary and benefits, plus payouts for accrued leave. The total exceeds $412,000 before benefits are fully tallied, drawn from district funds at a moment when the state has already assumed control over a system struggling with long-standing academic shortcomings.
Molinar’s original three-year contract, approved in March 2025, set base pay at $360,000 and ran through June 2028. In December 2025 the board amended2 it to add a $100,000 long-term service incentive, treated as additional salary and wages and spread across the remaining term. When the TEA appointed a Board of Managers and a new superintendent in late March 2026, Molinar shifted to an advisory role with no formal authority. The June 23 separation agreement,3 signed by the state-appointed board, converts the remaining relationship into a clean exit: continued pay through the end of July, then a lump-sum settlement equal to one year of salary and benefits, plus compensation for 20 unused vacation days and 15 personal leave days earned in the 2025-26 year. Those leave days alone add over $52,000 at her daily rate.
This is a classic “golden parachute.” An executive who held the top job for roughly one year, and who was removed from operational leadership after only about twelve months, walks away with more than a year’s compensation funded by taxpayers. The district was already under intervention precisely because of persistent low performance. Campuses with repeated failing ratings and large shares of students not performing at grade level. Resources that could support classrooms are instead financing a lucrative exit package negotiated after the state takeover began.
The 89th Legislature tried to restrain exactly this kind of arrangement. Senate Bill 2237,4 effective September 1, 2025, added Section 180.011 to the Local Government Code.5 It limits severance pay paid from tax revenue to the equivalent of 20 weeks of compensation for executive employees, including school superintendents. It bans severance entirely when the employee is terminated for misconduct, and it requires public posting of every such agreement. The statute defines severance as dismissal or separation income beyond the employee’s usual earnings at the time of termination. Twenty weeks of Molinar’s base salary equals roughly $138,000; the settlement delivers nearly three-times that amount.
Whether the Fort Worth deal strictly violates the new statute is debatable on technical grounds. The original employment contract predates the effective date of the bill, and the separation agreement is framed as a voluntary resignation rather than a termination for cause. Yet the June 2026 document is an employment-related agreement entered after SB 2237 took effect, and it expressly provides separation income well above the 20-week ceiling. The spirit of the reform, which is to stop taxpayer-funded golden parachutes for political-subdivision executives, is clearly strained.
If current law can be read to permit a one-year settlement in these circumstances, the statute needs tightening. Future amendments should explicitly cover resignation and separation agreements that deliver unearned compensation, and apply the 20-week cap to the total exit package regardless of how it is labeled.
State intervention exists to restore accountability when local systems fail. Handing out large exit packages during that process sends the opposite signal. Taxpayers fund both the failures that trigger takeover and the generous terms that accompany departure.
SB 2237 was a step in the right direction. Cases like this one show the work is unfinished.
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- https://fortworthreport.org/2026/07/14/fort-worth-isd-to-pay-karen-molinar-at-least-412k-in-separation-deal/ ↩︎
- https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1765756936/fwisdorg/n0cr0vw7obwqt0jllz3i/4-120925FIRSTModificationtoMolinarContract_signed.pdf ↩︎
- https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1783974815/fwisdorg/bbfozydxa3fjbuduphra/Molinar-SeparationAgreement2026.pdf ↩︎
- https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=89R&Bill=SB2237 ↩︎
- https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/billtext/pdf/SB02237F.pdf ↩︎
