Post Dispatch reporters Jessica Bock and Walker Moskop wrote an article concerning the extreme rise in public school district superintendent salaries in our state. Former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow's rise in salary is highlighted in the article.
It's good to see the rise in superintendent salaries getting some attention!
The article discusses how some school district's conduct performance evaluations for determining superintendent salaries. Fox C-6 computes superintendent and administrative salaries using a formula which is based on the highest amount on the teacher salary schedule along with factors for longevity and education.
The article points out some area superintendents that haven't seen raises in their salaries for several years. However, there may be other benefits that are "hidden" to offset not getting a salary increase.
One of the most important things to note is that retirement benefits are based on the average salary amount of an educator's 3 highest consecutive years of pay which includes medical benefits as well.
It's certainly been a real problem in our district for quite some time. Perhaps the formula for administrative salaries needs to be reviewed so salaries don't get so out of line with our district's demographics in the future.
I first wrote about superintendent salaries back in November 2010 after learning about how much former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Brown's salary had increased in just a few years after being hired to oversee our district. Since then I've covered this topic many times over the past several years as we watched her salary nearly double in the past 9 years. I've even asked questions at school board meetings regarding superintendent salaries.
Perhaps superintendent salaries may have been increasing thanks to the Missouri School Administrators Political Action Committee (PAC) that former superintendent Dianne Critchlow supported using her school district credit card. Fox Chief Financial Officer John Brazeal pointed out the fact that it's illegal to donate to a Political Action Committee using school district funds.
One of the issues that the Missouri School Administrators PAC that Dianne Critchlow donated to using her district credit card (taxpayer money) was, "Changing the perception of some legislators that school administration costs are too high and that school administrators are overpaid". The money that Dianne Critchlow donated to the PAC was recently returned to the district.
The Post Dispatch article above links to a searchable database of superintendent salaries in the area for the 2013-2014 school year compared to Inflation Adjusted values of superintendent salaries for the 2003-2004 school year.
Jim Chellew was superintendent of Fox C-6 during the 2003-2004 school year. He retired at the end of the 2004-2005 school year. Dianne Brown took over the reigns when Jim Chellew retired.
Jim Chellew's salary as reported by MO DESE for the 2003-2004 school year was $148,132 compared to his Inflation Adjusted salary amount of $186,519.28 that's found in the superintendent salary database from the Post Dispatch article. Salary amounts are submitted to MO DESE by each school district in their CORE data reports.
Below are some of my articles covering Dianne Brown-Critchlow's ever increasing salary in date order: