ST. CHARLES, Mo. – A secretive six figure school district payout led Missouri’s auditor to file legal action to get answers.

Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick had recently completed an inquiry into the district, giving it the low grade of “poor.”

The auditor then learned this public school system made a very costly, private deal.

“It’s certainly unusual, which is why we’re looking at it,” Fitzpatrick said.

The Francis Howell School District’s severance package doesn’t give a reason but does reveal an agreement that the district pays former Superintendent Dr. Mike Dominguez $229,166.67 to walk away.

“You don’t often have a situation where somebody is brought on and then immediately leaves and is paid out basically a full year of salary without ever having done any work,” Fitzpatrick said.

FOX 2 reached out to Dominguez’s previous employer in Kansas to ask if Francis Howell checked references. A Garden City District representative wrote us back, saying, “not that we are aware, no official reference check was made.”

No one will answer any other questions. We’ve also made three separate inquiries with Dominguez himself for answers, which taxpayers hope they’ll get.

Auditor Fitzpatrick said it took legal action to get answers.

“We were getting to the point where the delay had been long enough that we felt like we needed to issue a subpoena,” he said.

Francis Howell responded to FOX 2 with a statement: “Our legal counsel expressed some concerns about providing what would normally be considered confidential information…,” while adding, “all requested documents have (now) been provided.”

Jamie Martin, a representative for the political action committee Francis Howell Forward, said it was also unfortunate the district lost a solid superintendent who left for Kirkwood schools.

“If we had not lost Dr. Roumpos, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Martin said.

There’s no timeline yet on when the auditor will announce what he learns.