The disgraced former special ed director who was accused of misusing more than $37 million in taxpayer dollars has lost his pension appeal in front of a state appeals court.

John Barranco — who was the executive director of both the Merrimack Special Education Collaborative and Merrimack Education Center — brought this appeal after he was forced to give back more than $800,000 in excess pension payments to the state.

This case goes back nearly 20 years when Barranco retired from the Merrimack Special Education Collaborative in Billerica, now named the Valley Collaborative, and he began collecting a $155,952 yearly pension from the Massachusetts Teachers’ Retirement System (MTRS).

While receiving those annual payments, Barranco continued to serve as the executive director of the related Merrimack Education Center in Chelmsford — a private, nonprofit company that provides logistical and admin support to schools, towns and the collaborative. His salary at MEC was astronomical; for instance, he took home $533,842 from MEC in 2009, as he also collected the $155,952 pension.

In his role at MEC, Barranco oversaw the collaborative’s finances, managed layoffs, signed employment contracts, and decided which programs the collaborative ran.

“When MTRS learned of Barranco’s continued role at MEC in overseeing the collaborative after his retirement therefrom, it began an investigation,” reads the Thursday ruling from the Massachusetts Appeals Court.

The state’s retirement system, the Division of Administrative Law Appeals, and the Contributory Retirement Appeals Board ruled that Barranco received earnings from MEC that violated the post-retirement earnings limits.

Barranco ended up filing a complaint in Suffolk Superior Court, and the judge affirmed the Contributory Retirement Appeals Board’s decision. The Massachusetts Appeals Court upheld the ruling on Thursday.

“Barranco was provided with due process throughout the numerous hearings, reviews, and appeals of this case,” the court wrote in its ruling. “Ultimately, he was unable to meet his burden of proof. Simply put, the funds at issue were ‘illegal as matter of law given (Barranco’s) concurrent receipt of retirement benefits.’ ”

Back in 2011, a bombshell report from the state Office of the Inspector General alleged that Barranco stole more than $37 million that was intended to help special-education students.

The IG report claimed that Barranco manipulated the collaborative’s and center’s payrolls, inflating his pension while doling out extravagant salaries and bonuses to himself, his former girlfriend and friends.

He was accused of taking money targeted for special-needs students and instead spending it on parties, bar tabs, golf outings and out-of-state trips. The state inspector general also said Barranco used the money to renovate and decorate his vacation homes in Lake Winnipesaukee and Florida.

In addition, the report said Barranco used MEC’s American Express card to charge more than $50,000 on expensive shoes, costly dinners, furniture and a trip to the Kentucky Derby.

In June 2008, MEC shelled out nearly $57,000 for the annual MEC Boston getaway weekend. According to the IG’s report, Barranco used MEC money to buy dinner for 48 people at more than $100 per plate, as well as 24 bottles of wine, 13 bottles of champagne and 274 alcoholic drinks.

The following night, Barranco bought dinner for 48 at $88 per plate, as well as 24 bottles of wine, 10 bottles of champagne, 154 glasses of wine and 43 beers. The weekend also included a $3,000 harbor cruise and $500-per-night rooms at Boston Harbor Hotel.

The list goes on and on.

Yet more than a decade later, no charges have come from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office or U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The Massachusetts AG’s Office declined to comment on Thursday.

“We don’t confirm or deny investigations,” a spokesperson for the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote.

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In Thursday’s ruling about Barranco’s pension, the court went over the Massachusetts Teachers’ Retirement System’s investigation. After an informal hearing during which Barranco participated but refused to produce all requested documents, the hearing officer found that he had received $51,242 in excess of the statutory limit.

Then the state retirement system received new documents from the Office of the Inspector General, and the hearing officer reopened the investigation — concluding that Barranco had earned total excess earnings of $815,746.

Barranco has argued that the state law for pensions does not apply to the collaborative.

“We are not persuaded,” the court wrote in its ruling. “By statute, an education collaborative, through its board of directors, is a public employer, and thus a public entity… That education collaboratives are not among the entities specifically listed in (Massachusetts General Laws Section 91) is of no moment.”

He also argued that because he worked for MEC — a private entity — the state law is inapplicable, and that the withholding of his pension payments was unlawful.

“There was substantial evidence that Barranco rendered services to the collaborative, paid by public funds, while collecting his MTRS pension,” the court ruling reads. “As CRAB found, Barranco exercised ‘significant control over management of the collaborative’ while serving as executive director of MEC. In fact, all of Barranco’s job duties at the collaborative followed him to his employment with MEC… We therefore conclude that it was reasonable for CRAB to hold that Barranco’s service to the collaborative, through his role at MEC, subjected him to the limits established by (Massachusetts General Laws Section 91).”