A new article lays bare the increasing irrationality of ISD administrator compensation. According to the Texas Monitor, over the last 15 months, ISDs around the state have approved severance packages to 24 superintendents worth an estimated $6 million or an average of $250,000 per official.
Troublingly, many of these arrangements appear to have been much larger than necessary. “In several cases, the payouts were more than the administrator’s annual salary,” according to the article.
Other details uncovered are also alarming.
Take, for example, Brookesmith ISD, a district with student enrollment of just 124 students. In 2016, the district approved a severance package for then-superintendent Guy Birdwell that totaled $194,000 or “nearly 20 percent of the district’s assets.”. At the time, his regular salary was just $97,000.
In another instance, Seguin ISD hired Stetson Roane to be the superintendent of the district in 2015, following a separation agreement worth $173,000 for the prior administrator, Irene Garza. Roane also brought his wife to the district to be a teacher and secured for her a $106,000 position. A short 2 years later, Roane left the district with a severance agreement worth $256,066, “after a female colleague accused him of sexual impropriety.”
Other examples abound, but the sum total is this: administrator compensation is out of hand and it is a big reason why classrooms are suffering shortages. It’s high-time that legislators took up the issue and made sure that our kids are not getting the short end of the stick.