Salary cover is blown
School superintendents hide behind their base pay while they reap benefits that taxpayers don't see

Published on: 05/17/06

Should metro-area school superintendents earn more than the governor?

More to the point, if they do earn more, shouldn't taxpayers at least be aware of it?

When it comes to the paychecks of school chiefs, what local taxpayers see isn't always what superintendents get. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis found clauses deep in the contracts of 14 metro superintendents that gave the school officals an average of $33,900 in nonsalary pay last year.

Those perks sweeten already-brimming pots — all metro superintendents outearn the governor in base pay.

Because the extras were not easy to discern in the complex contracts, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Heather Vogell used the state Open Records Act to obtain an itemized list of all compensation paid to superintendents in 2005. The list revealed add-ons ranging from $7,800 in Coweta County to $108,300 in Atlanta.

By covertly fattening the paychecks of superintendents, school boards mislead their constituents. Voters should not need a forensic audit to figure out the true earnings of their local school chief.

For example, if Cherokee County voters inquired what they were paying Superintendent Frank Petruzielo, they'd likely be told $152,000. What they would not learn is that extras, including a car allowance, raise Petruzielo's total compensation to more than $194,400.

No one gets more of a boost in pay from extras than Atlanta Superintendent Beverly Hall. Her 10-page contract states a base salary of $241,300. However, that amount inflates to almost $349,600 when a $68,300 performance bonus and other extras come into view.

In other words, before taxpayers can decide for themselves whether Hall and other school superintendents deserve the money they're being paid, taxpayers first have to know what that compensation actually is.

They have to know something else as well — how well school leaders are performing in the job. But here again, voters are kept in the dark by most school boards.

While school boards evaluate superintendents annually, those evaluations are deemed private documents, and state law allows local boards and superintendents to decide whether to make those evaluations public. Most do not, and those who technically make the documents available to the public often make the process so cumbersome that citizens give up and go home.

A notable and laudable exception is the city of Gainesville, which posts Superintendent Steven Ballowe's evaluation scores each year on its Web site.

By shrouding evaluations in secrecy and burying the pay perks in the fine print, metro school boards stymie taxpayers interested in learning whether their school superintendents are doing a good job and whether their compensation for that job is legitimate or larcenous.

— Maureen Downey, for the editorial board (mdowney@ajc.com)