I wanted to point out a widely discussed topic that is much more political than factual, and in my opinion, a complete deflection on the part of the Governor and legislators that points the finger of blame on non-unionized superintendents, rather than the statutes that provide protection over the evaluative process of work performance, a speedy, one-time only tenure appointment, and most importantly, bargaining leverage to the Teachers’ and Administrators' Union (NYSUT), as well as other legislative mandates, as the root cause of public education expenses that are spiraling out of control.
As reconfirmed in Newsday this morning, Long Island will approve $10.8 BILLION dollars in spending next Tuesday. The average “all in” compensation (salary and benefits) of school superintendents on LI (and Westchester for that matter) is $295,000. If you extrapolate that out for 124 districts on LI, you could come to a total estimate of school superintendents’ compensation on Long Island of $36,580,000, or (0.34%), or 1/3rd of one percent of all school spending. Moreover, this would be the amount saved if all superintendent salaries were eliminated, not lowered.
If you went to the Governor’s proposed cap, the savings this will generate on Long Island collectively is approximately (0.14%), or 1/7th of one percent of school budgets on Long Island. So, when the naïve say a material amount of money, or “a great deal of money” can be saved by lowering salaries of superintendents, they are making an assumption that has not been researched very well and has NO basis of fact.
In order to get some perspective, think of the following: teachers work 10-months per year and every school district has teachers with similar long-time seniority in education as superintendents do. These teachers make $105k - $118k, and with a couple of stipends for clubs or extra-curricular work, easily reach the $125k mark. I can tell you Elwood has a number of teachers in this category and Elwood teachers are not the highest paid on Long Island or among the eight neighboring districts in Huntington for that matter. Therefore, in considering the Governor’s proposed legislation would have an Elwood Superintendent make an all in compensation package of $155,000, I ask you ponder this question: Why would anyone take a superintendent’s job for less than $30k a year more than he/she could make as a classroom teacher?
Is this issue a political sound bit for legislators that gets a lot of mileage among the frustrated taxpayer, or is it a prudent school business policy that clearly is in the best interest of managing effective schools while also providing relief to the taxpayer?
A truly pertinent question might be - What is the value of an effective educator with CEO level experience and leadership in a school district and what is the marketplace for such an individual?
