A few phone calls from Charles Larke have cost Augusta taxpayers about a quarter million dollars.

Kept on the payroll as a consultant after he resigned as superintendent four months ago, Dr. Larke has done little more than answer a few minor questions over the telephone, according to school officials.

Over the same span, he has yet to file a report, attend a school board meeting or make any policy recommendations.

Dr. Larke will end his stint as a consultant March 31, taking with him $277,000 and leaving some people asking whether it was worth it.

The contract inked with the former superintendent in September, after months of contentious secret meetings, agreed to continue to pay him the same salary as a consultant to work from home. The contract also rewarded him with $97,000 in tax-deferred annuities retroactively to July, with the possibility of continuing to receive those annuities until the end of March. The annuities had been taken away when the board graded his job performance as poor.

"I don't know what they got for this money. I would say they got very little for it," said Ken Echols, who served on the school board when the deal was made. "It was a mistake. It was a very very expensive mistake."

But hopefully a lesson was learned, he said. Board members need to question and know what is in the superintendent's contract. It was that contract that triggered many of the board's questions and played a part in Dr. Larke's ouster.

"I don't think the taxpayers got their money's worth, but then again, it was a trade off," Mr. Echols said, referring to the board's intent to remove Dr. Larke as superintendent even at the high cost. Without the "buy off," the situation could have ended up in court and wound up costing more.

But board member Barbara Pulliam stopped short of calling it that.

"I wouldn't call it a 'buyout.' I would just call it the end to a mess," she said, also unsure of what he has done as a consultant.

Under the new contract, Dr. Larke was to serve as a consultant, performing any duties requested of him by the interim superintendent in writing.

But little has been requested of him since he stepped down as superintendent Oct. 31.

"I don't know of anything he has done," board member Helen Minchew said.

On Thursday, Interim Superintendent James Thompson said Dr. Larke has been available but for the most part hasn't been needed.

"I haven't talked to him but maybe two or three times," he said, adding that it could be three or four times that they've spoken by phone, but he hasn't kept count.

There just hasn't been a reason to call other than the occasional question about procedure, Mr. Thompson said.

"I didn't come into this position immediately to make a bunch of wholesale changes," he said.

In addition to the phone calls, Mr. Thompson said Dr. Larke attended the swearing in of new school board members and attended a meeting of the citizens committee to get the special purpose local option sales tax approved.

Voters passed the tax shortly after the meeting, a week after he stepped down as superintendent.

"Dr. Larke was very influential in getting the SPLOST passed even though he was gone," Mr. Thompson said. "In that capacity, he was consulting."

Messages left for Dr. Larke last week weren't returned.

As an incentive to ensure he put in the work as a consultant, the contract allows the school board at any time to call a meeting and withhold his annuities for the month.

That hasn't happened.

Reach Greg Gelpi at (706) 828-3851 or greg.gelpi@augustachronicle.com.