Dive Brief:

• Ron Tomalis, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett's special adviser on higher education, resigned Tuesday after growing media attention around his plush salary ($140,000) and unclear responsibilities.  
• Earlier in the month, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette raised questions about Tomalis' job duties, reporting that in 14 months of work his calendar had barely any activity, his phone logs averaged about a call a day, and he had sent out only 5 emails. 
• Tomalis, a former Pennsylvania education secretary, said in a resignation letter sent to acting education secretary Carolyn Dumaresq that he had been considering other career moves and that his departure is for the best. 

Dive Insight:

Making Tomalis' resignation more confusing is the fact that in his letter to Dumaresq he acknowledges the programs he was involved in. The list includes working with Corbett on his schools program, helping with a high school STEM competition, supervising virtual charter schools and evaluating recommendations made by a higher-education commission. Almost all of his claimed tasks deal with the K-12 arena, despite his title being "special adviser on higher education." So even if Tomalis was in fact doing work that warranted his $140,000 a year salary, none of it was in the sphere he was designated for, indicating larger organizational issues in Corbett's administration. This news is a particularly low blow, given the financial devastation faced by Philadelphia's public schools.