District response intended to mislead the Public

The District continues to dodge the real question that must be asked. Of course, this question can be asked many times and the responses are normally not connected to the question.

The Edmonds School District continues to peddle the argument that their team of assistant superintendents are compensated in a normal, reasonable fashion. However, the question that must be answered is how many assistant superintendents do other districts have? More revealing would be to ask, "How many people in other districts earn more than $100,000.00 per year?" I suspect the result would be rather troubling.

I would never suggest that an assistant superintendent or "deputy" superintendent should not be paid $150,000.00 a year. Yes, it seems rather excessive when you compare such a salary to average salaries within our community, but if this assistant superintendent was a powerful force for educational empowerment and motivated our community to take greater interest in producing great students, I would readily argue that the salary was not high enough.

Part of the responsibility of the Superintendent's Office is to build upon the successes achieved in the classroom and nurture support from the community to strengthen the District's mission. If we had a superintendent that successfully accomplished this goal, with an appropriate number of assistants, that would be newsworthy. Unfortunately, we have assembled a team of six assistants while other districts work with far fewer.

Here are a couple of rather telling documents provided by the Edmonds School District. First, there is a direct comparison (here) with other school districts in our region and the level of compensation provided to their assistant superintendents. Notice the absence of real information, like how many assistants work at these districts. Notice also that Bellevue has no "deputy" superintendent. How is that possible? Based upon the Edmonds model, they should have at least five.

Second, there is a document (here) that reveals the financial impact of having so many assistants, each of them receiving a cost of living increase on an annual basis. If our district had just one assistant superintendent, the financial impact would be significantly less. Unfortunately, we have six assistants. Every couple of years, the COLAs alone would fully fund yet another assistant. Of course, that same series of adjustments could add capacity to the number of teachers.

Third, there is a rather interesting document (here) that illustrates just how many assistants are dining at the trough of public funds. While there may eventually be an initiative to reduce the number of "assistant superintendents", there will never be a downward adjustment in the number of dollars spent on these employees. Titles may change, but salaries will continue to move onward and upward.

How is it possible that so many other districts can survive with so few "assistants" and "deputies"? I have said this many times before and I will mention it once again. During periods of financial challenges, when raises cannot be handed out to upper management, titles are used to make people feel better about themselves. When funding improves, these managers start wondering how people with such powerful titles can be earning so little - raises come flooding in. These raises come at a direct cost in the number of teachers, paraeducators and librarians.

Make no mistake, it is a club and until our community is prepared to address the senseless gluttony demonstrated by these bloated salaries, we will continue to struggle financially.