5 EYEWITNESS NEWS first reported Tuesday that two former St. Paul Public Schools employees, both of whom were fired from the district in 2022, filed a whistleblower lawsuit claiming they were fired when they raised questions and concerns about how the district was spending $200 million in federal COVID relief funds.

In the lawsuit, former school district Chief Financial Officer Marie Schrul and former Business Systems Manager Curtis Mahanay allege the district misspent, misappropriated “massive” amounts of COVID relief money and then covered those actions by submitting falsified financial records to make it appear as though the money had been spent properly.

RELATED: Lawsuit claims St. Paul Public Schools ‘misused’ federal COVID funding violating federal law

One of the claims in the lawsuit stated that former Superintendent Dr. Joe Gothard and other top administrators, “used emergency COVID funding to maintain its budgetary shell game.”

“So, again, I was raising another question and red flag,” Schrul told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS in an exclusive interview.

The lawsuit also said top administrators knew of “abusive conduct toward female colleagues” by a top administrator in the district, and the school board knew about the “behavior toward women but chose to do nothing.”

Schrul and Mahanay, in the lawsuit, also alleged that, “Gothard’s leadership team devised a scheme to sell their unused vacation days back to the district…such sales are against the law.”

A spokesperson for St. Paul Public Schools told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the district does not comment on active lawsuits but did point out that a budget review by an outside firm found the 2024 budget outperformed expectations.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS reached out to Gothard’s current employer, the Madison Metropolitan School District, in Wisconsin, seeking comment from Gothard.  A spokesperson at MMSD said the district does not comment on legal matters.