How much salary should a position be paid? The answer is complex and often generates an emotional response.
I thought about this issue when the Democrat & Chronicle printed the 10 highest-paid state employees in Monroe County for 2007.
The SUNY Brockport president is at the top of this list at $210,500. He manages 8,300 students, 573 faculty, and 66 buildings.
The Greece School District superintendent (a district employee) made $203,000 to manage 20 schools, 13,000 students and 926 teachers.
In Brighton, we pay our superintendent $186,800 to manage 4 schools, 3,500 students and 300 teachers.
Let’s look at this data in chart form:
| # Students | # Faculty | # Buildings | Salary | |
| SUNY Brockport |
8,300 |
573 |
66 |
$210,500 |
| Greece Central Schools |
13,000 |
926 |
20 |
$203,300 |
| Brighton |
3,500 |
300 |
4 |
$186,800 |
No one would recommend that the salary for a district superintendent’s position be strictly proportional to the number of students or faculty or buildings. There is certainly some “base” level of pay associated with the position.
But it would appear that the Greece superintendent position is underpaid and the Brighton superintendent position is overpaid….based on the level of responsibility.
As the chart above indicates, the Brighton taxpayers have been generous in our salaries when compared to the level of responsibilities in our very small district.
You can check-out many of the superintendent salaries at:
http://www.smugtownbeacon.com/news.php?viewStory=101
I recall a meeting a number of years ago when Brighton was searching for a new superintendent and was asking for public input. The proposed starting salary was going to be the ending salary of the previous superintendent who had been in the job a number of years.
One resident stated that a starting salary should not be set. He suggested that we should pay ANY amount necessary to get the “right” person. I asked how many people were applying for the job. The answer: 450! It seemed to me that Brighton was not going to have a difficult time finding a good applicant.
I certainly believe that the Brighton superintendent position requires long hours and strong management skills. But the reality is that Brighton is a relatively easy district to manage when compared to many others in Monroe County (see Greece!!).
Should Brighton’s administrative salaries be as high as they are?