BATON ROUGE — A former BREC employee is continuing her fight to get her job back, saying she was wrongfully terminated for refusing to follow improper financial orders.

Friday marked the second day of testimony before the BREC Board of Commissioners in the appeal hearing for Tonya Smith, who stood her ground after being told to use new budget funds to pay old invoices.

“We have a 2024–25 contract, and then we have a 2025–26 contract. What I’ve been stating is that we cannot use the 2025–26 funds to pay old invoices from 2024–25,” Smith said.

Tensions rose when Interim Superintendent Janet Simmons took the stand. Simmons said that Smith’s supervisor, Raharold Lawson, was involved in the decision to fire her, but Smith challenged that claim.

“We ended up finding out that my supervisor wa

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