While schools slash budgets, superintendents ca$h in

Mar. 21, 2013 9:22am Meredith Jessup

As it turns out, public school superintendents are some of the most highly paid government employees in the country:

A growing number of school superintendents are now the highest paid government employees in the country, earning gold-plated compensation in the mid-six-figure range. That pay is often ten times what their teachers get paid—and often double the salaries governors get to run entire states. School superintendents get paid more than governors in a dozen states: New Jersey, New York, California, Ohio, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Washington, FOX Business has found.

The rising pay for school supers is happening as states and school districts are slashing budgets in the face of record deficits. Unfunded retiree liabilities for government workers also continue to climb, to an estimated $1.38 trillion, says the Pew Center on the States.

Meanwhile, school districts continue to struggle with poor student performance. The U.S. education system gets a C-minus grade from Education Week, based on student scores and fiscal accountability, among other things.

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Comments (4)

anothercomment
Posted on March 22, 2013 at 6:43am
As much as I admire Gov. Mead (WY) and his dedication to education, this is a surprise and a disappointment.
Gov. Mead has stated his desire to increase the effectiveness of the school system. Unless this superintendent has a proven ability to turn the state’s school system around into a school that ‘TEACHES TO LEARN’ instead of ‘TEACHING FOR TESTING’, this is not a good investment.
I understand money spent to draw a superintendent into a state that needs to find a way to educate children from wide variety of backgrounds, but I strongly believe that this money should be invested our schools, additional activities, truly educational trips to historical icons of American history, rather hand that money to a person which strangely most Wyomingites have not met, much less been allowed to express their personal desires for the educations of our children in person.

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AllAmericanGirl22
Posted on March 21, 2013 at 3:52pm
Ohio – I knew it. i live in a small town and our super makes over 2,000,000 ridiculous, too much of our tax money is going to these corrupt schools.

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Rockyracoon
Posted on March 21, 2013 at 2:22pm
I think this a no brainer law, but NO federal government employee should be compensated higher than the POTUS, and no state employee should be paid more than the governor. My superintendent was grossly overcompensated when I was in High School in Illinois… to the tune of $250,000 while the Governor was (only) paid $179,400. No wonder we are broke.

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cdog8888
Posted on March 21, 2013 at 10:12am
I went and spoke out at my local school board meeting about this. I’m a substitute and they want to cut teacher’s salaries but not their own. Same concept with companies. The CEO’s make all the money and the workers don’t. But with the school system you are fighting against the entrenched ideas of the teachers union and the democratic party. This makes it even harder to make any political change like this.

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