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Perks boost pay for school chief; Housing, incentive raise worth $62,000

Note that part of Vallas's performance-based bonus is based on how quickly he can standardize the curriculum.

When everybody is thinking alike, nobody is thinking very much.

By Darran Simon

Recovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas will earn more than $238,000 a year and also is eligible to receive a $48,000 annual housing stipend and a $14,000 performance-based raise after three months.

Vallas' housing stipend amounts to $4,000 a month and he could receive it "as salary," according to the contract that runs from July 9 to June 30, 2009. Vallas could also receive a 6 percent raise in October and annually after that, contingent on a positive evaluation by State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek.

Pastorek said he will judge Vallas, the former Philadelphia schools chief, on several benchmarks including a smooth opening of schools on Sept. 4, beefing up the number of teachers and administration staff and improving academics.

After Oct. 1, Vallas' total salary package -- a base salary of $238,386, the housing stipend and 6 percent raise -- would rise to about $300,000, slightly higher than Pastorek's total package of $299,249. The state Department of Education does not track superintendent salaries, according to a spokeswoman, but Vallas is by far the highest paid superintendent in the state, said Tom Tate, director of government relations for the Louisiana Association of Educators.

Pastorek said he wanted to give Vallas an incentive to get schools open smoothly on Sept. 4, "and drastically change the way we're doing business."

"I want to see it now and I don't want to wait," Pastorek said.

Vallas, who officially took control of the Recovery School District this month, took a pay cut to come to New Orleans, a smaller system than in Philadelphia, where he served as chief executive for five years. He is slated to make about $400,000 for the school year that just ended, including a $275,000 base salary, a bonus and retention pay, for running the nation's eighth-largest district, Vallas said. If he had stayed in Philadelphia, he would have been scheduled to make about $485,000 including base pay of $285,000, retention pay and a bonus of $50,000 in the first year of a two-year contract extension.

"It wasn't like an extensive negotiation. This is what they offered and I accepted," Vallas said of his New Orleans pay. "I said that I couldn't make more than the state superintendent."

Tate said Vallas' housing allowance -- and the size of it -- seemed atypical because most superintendents already live in the areas where they are hired to work. Also, three months is a short period to get a performance-based raise because most superintendents receive annual performance-based raises, Tate said.

"It's a huge challenge. If he makes a turnaround and it becomes a district that is on the same playing field as any other district, then he is worth his money," Tate said of Vallas. "However, superintendents come and go pretty quickly in New Orleans. Hopefully Mr. Vallas is successful."

Jefferson Parish Superintendent Diane Roussel is the only local superintendent whose salary approaches Vallas'. Roussel recently received a three-year contract extension in which she could collect a series of raises that would bring her salary to $247,000 by the 2009-10 school year.

Pastorek said he would have liked to pay Vallas even more money, but "it probably won't be well-received" if Vallas made more money than Pastorek's salary.

"So, I decided to pay him on par to what I'm making," Pastorek said.

As of July 1, Pastorek's total salary is $299,249, including a $4,000 monthly stipend for housing and job-related expenses and a $2,000 monthly car allowance. Pastorek received a 6 percent performance-based raise to his initial base salary of $214,386 effective on July 1, after about four months on the job.

Claudia Mansfield Sutton, associate executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, said she saw nothing abnormal in Vallas' contract. Contracts vary greatly in districts, she said.

"Superintendents' contracts are all over the ballpark. It depends on the size of the district. It depends on the standard of living," she said.

The national average salary for superintendents is $116,244, with an average of almost $185,000 in the 2005-06 school year for districts of 25,000 or more students, according to the American Association of School Administrators.

The state-run recovery district operates 22 schools and oversees 17 charter schools. The district expects to open a dozen traditional schools and oversee eight more public schools in the 2007-08 school year.

Though the recovery district is a beleaguered urban system that has struggled for years with low-achievement, neglected and run-down buildings and other challenges, Vallas makes more than some other urban superintendents who run larger systems. Miami-Dade County Schools Superintendent Rudy Crew makes about $315,000 to run a district serving more than 360,000 students and with more than 300 schools, the fourth-largest in the country.

Vallas has said community members can judge his performance based on a checklist of three-month goals including reducing class size, updating technology in classrooms, establishing an extended-day program and standardizing curriculum. Pastorek can terminate Vallas for a poor evaluation, according to the contract.

"At the end of the year, if they are not satisfied by my performance, he can make a change, which is why it is not a long-term, guaranteed contract," Vallas said.



— Darran Simon
Times-Picayune
2007-07-18


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