Posted on 04/24/2024 11:47:25 AM PDT by JeepersFreepers
Texas school superintendent salaries continue to rise, despite falling enrollments and flagging student performance, leaving taxpayers wondering what they are getting for their money.
Newly released Texas Education Agency data for the 2023-24 school year shows eight superintendents with salaries above $400,000 and another 81 receiving $300,000 or more.
Texas’ highest-paid school superintendent was again Cypress-Fairbanks ISD’s Mark Henry, who pulled down a base salary of $536,775 before retiring in December 2023.
Last school year, 77 superintendents received taxpayer-funded salaries above $300,000, with five making $400,000 or more.
During the 2021-22 school year, 60 superintendents scored salaries at or above $300,000.
The lucrative salaries are supplemented by benefits such as allowances for cars, phones, and housing, along with large pension contributions. They often include hefty bonuses as well.
All are provided at taxpayers’ expense.
Superintendent salaries are set by elected school board trustees. The top administrators’ salaries show no correlation to the number of students enrolled in a district or students’ academic performance.
James Quintero, a policy director at the free-market think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation, noted that superintendents’ “sky-high salaries” prompt taxpayers to wonder what they are getting for their money.
“Superintendents are getting rich from their public service. Such self-centeredness is violative of taxpayers and the public trust. Worse, it deprives classrooms of resources needed to teach kids to read, write, and do math,” Quintero told Texas Scorecard.
“Sky-high superintendent salaries raise serious questions about the lack of fiscal discipline throughout all of public education. After all, if there’s no restraint at the top, then why should we expect to find prudence elsewhere?” he added.
Two districts in the top 20 of superintendent pay are under state-appointed management: Houston ISD and La Joya ISD.
Klein ISD, which paid Superintendent Jenny McGown $404,430 for the 2023-24 school year, had four teachers arrested during that time for sex crimes involving children—including a teacher charged with forcing students into prostitution.
Prosper ISD Superintendent Holly Ferguson received a raise in 2023—from $310,000 to $350,000—plus a $40,000 bonus following revelations that she covered up a bus driver’s arrest for sexually molesting two elementary students. Ferguson is currently under investigation by the Texas Education Agency.
Last year, Texas Scorecard asked readers if superintendent salaries should be capped at no more than the governor’s salary of $153,750.
A majority of respondents supported reducing and/or limiting superintendent salaries. Some suggested tying the top administrators’ pay to teachers’ salaries.
“Public sector compensation reform is sorely needed next session,” said Quintero. “The 89th Texas Legislature must get control of runaway salaries, benefits, and severance pay at the local level.”
Also, superintendents salaries are increasing at a rapid pace.
Sky-high salaries plus
<><>perks,
<><>privileges
<><>and when they retire, millionaire publicly-funded pensions.
Not very different from NY State - which also includes lifetime pensions and health-care.
And that’s one of the big problems with schools. These folks are treating admin jobs as corporate executive jobs. In my town, the superintendent is even creating jobs out of thin air just to promote or hire certain individuals she wants on staff.
And throughout the country, voters approve multi-million $ school bonds continuously, under the ruse of “for the children”. Until the electorate becomes more educated, this will continue. I am not optimistic.
School Boards set the salary, benefits, and performance requirements for Superintendents in their contract. Any beef about their pay has to be directed there.
Yes. It always annoyed me how much superintendents are paid. In my home town of Milford Ct, we had one snake oil salesman after making 200k plus who reformed nothing. They were great at power points presentations and buzz words but fired not one lazy, incompetent teacher.
Defund public education. We have to burn the village to save it.
Feeding at the engorged nipples of socialized ‘education’.
In my "conservative" town, I have never seen a school budget fail. The budget meetings may have some people asking pointed questions, but once the budget is out, it ALWAYS gets approved by significant margins.
One recently was a $6 million upgrade to the football field, a new beautiful scoreboard, etc.. - for a sport which directly serves maybe 30 boys (and now has a tough time recruiting enough players to join) and 15 girls as cheerleaders.
As you say "its for the kids" and parents seem to automatically vote YES to anything that's proposed.
In my town they have ONE polling place, it's on the school campus, they get a few thousand yes votes from the teachers who due to proximity vote at near 100% turnout levels. That's near impossible to overcome.
The solution to public education is very simple. Take all the tax money for education and turn it into vouchers for the parents to spend at their school of choice for their children, either public or private and I mean every damn penny. Competition for the dollar will solve the problem.
What is really obscene is those parents that can afford to send their kids to private schools, I was one. We paid all the taxes for public schools but also paid for private schools for our kids. Each and every kid in private schools is a direct subsidy to public schools. In effect we get taxed twice.
What about the tax money paid by people with no kids? I’m tired of paying for other peoples kid’s education and sports teams. We should get it all back in cash.
Me too
You are correct.
I have maintained that very policy, since the mid-1990s.
I live in a town of 12,000 people in Oklahoma. The city passed an $85 million bond with only 1600 people voting. 900 for the affirmative. That would pretty much amount to the school, staff administration and their families. Unbelievable. Of course, it was for parking lot improvements, new gymnasium, etc. Our property taxes were scheduled to go down approximately $300 a year and of course that did not happen. What I love is that a bunch of people were bitching about their property taxes, yet they did not vote. We have to live with the consequences of stupidity and indifference. That is at the local level and also the national level.
Correcting this issue would require so-called conservatives getting off their fat asses and voting in schoolboard elections and attending schoolboard meetings.
Conservatives have the numbers and the opportunity to control nearly every schoolboard in the country.
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