Proposal ties compensation to district size, encourage districts to share administrative teams
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The proposal would mean salary cuts for 366 superintendents at the end of their current contracts, saving school districts $9.8 million, the Republican governor said. The new rules also would encourage districts to share superintendents and administrative teams, reducing the overlap in those positions and producing more savings, Education Commissioner Bret Schundler said.
Superintendents and education advocates predicted quality leaders would rush for the exits, and it would be difficult to attract replacements. But Christie said the potential for merit pay — up to 15 percent above the overall salary — would reward the best educators while stopping the competition between districts that hurts taxpayers.
"People are bouncing around like free agents in baseball, and getting higher and higher salaries as they go," Christie said at a news conference at a Spotswood elementary school. "What we’re trying to do here is to shift the paradigm."
Maximum pay for superintendents would be pegged to enrollment, from $120,000 for the smallest districts up to $175,000 for districts with between 3,000 and 10,000 students. The 16 largest districts do not have an upper limit, but Schundler said he expects pay to drop there too, as the Department of Education sets criteria tailored to their needs.
The salary limits would also apply to nontenured assistant superintendents and business administrators at the start of their next contract, while those who are tenured and earning higher than the scale would see their pay frozen, Schundler said. Interim superintendents also would be covered by the rules, he said.
The proposal does not require legislative approval and would be enforced by county executive superintendents, who are appointed by the governor. It would not affect principals, who like teachers are covered by collective bargaining agreements, Schundler said.
"It seems to be just foolish, because many superintendents would be making less than the principals working in their district," said Jim O’Neill, superintendent in the District of the Chathams in Morris County. O’Neill, who makes $210,000, would see his pay drop to $175,000 for overseeing a district of about 4,000 students.
"I think that if he was on the other side of this, he would call this arbitrary and capricious," O’Neill said.
The plan disregards cost of living differences across the state, said Bruce Baker, an assistant professor at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education.
"If you’re not concerned with quality, fine," he said.
Following Christie’s divisive and largely unsuccessful push for a voluntary teacher pay freeze, the administrator plan strikes at populist territory that has long infuriated taxpayers. A recent Star-Ledger review found six-figure salaries are common among administrators, with 235 of them earning more than the governor’s $175,000 salary in the 2008-09 school year.
But superintendents said they earn their keep through their specialized understanding of personnel, finance, curriculum, administration and school-construction issues.
"We really paid our dues," said Kenneth Knops, who would see $10,000 lopped off his $175,000 salary as superintendent in Clark. "I’ve been in education for 34 years, took a lot of graduate courses, went to a lot of night meetings. I started my career in 1976, making $9,300 a year as a teacher. It’s been a long climb to the top, so I’d certainly have mixed feelings about taking a pay cut."
School boards were also divided, despite Christie’s promises they would benefit from the new structure and be able to offer merit pay based on factors most important at the local level. Merit pay would not count toward the educators’ pensions.
"We want qualified people, and we don’t want New Jersey at a disadvantage in attracting those candidates," said New Jersey School Boards Association spokesman Frank Belluscio.
Christie acknowledged "we may lose some" superintendents because of the pay cuts, "but if that’s the sole reason they’re here, then goodbye," he said.
"The parents who are paying the bills through their property taxes have sustained pay cuts," he said.
The salary limits would not include other forms of compensation, such as accumulated sick and vacation time, which had already been curtailed in 2007, Schundler said. He acknowledged there are long-serving superintendents who will still "retire with very large payouts," but noted the average superintendent has only spent about two years in a district so the changes would be felt "in very short order."
Eliot Caroom, Karl De Vries, Tomás Dinges, Ryan Hutchins, Eugene Paik, Veronica Slaght and Stephen Stirling of the New Jersey Local News Service contributed to this report.