The topic of superintendent pay may be getting lost in the recent flood of news reports about heavy turnover at the highest level of K12 leadership over the last several months. At the same time, many school boards are setting their spending plans for the year, locking in pay raises, merit bonuses and other benefits for superintendents readying their districts for the 2023-24 school year.
For example, Eric Gallien, the new superintendent of Charleston County Schools, will be paid $275,000 a year to lead South Carolina’s second-largest district. That’s a $33,000 increase over outgoing Superintendent Don Kennedy’s annual salary of about $242,000, according to ABCNews4.com. Gallien is currently the superintendent of Racine USD in Wisconsin. In a neighboring state, new superintendent Denise Watts will earn $300,000 annually at the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System in Georgia, according to Georgia Public Broadcasting.
One of the most high-profile changes in leadership occurred in the state takeover of Texas’ largest district, Houston ISD. The state has installed former Dallas ISD superintendent Mike Miles, who will initially earn $1,473 per day, Houston Public Media reported. Once Miles’ long-term contract is approved, his salary is expected to land in the range of the annual $360,000 received by Millard House II, the superintendent ousted in the takeover earlier this month, according to Houston Public Media.
House has since been named the superintendent of Maryland’s Prince George’s County Public Schools, a 131,000-student district outside Washington, D.C. His contract is still being negotiated with the district’s school board.
In another one of the nation’s largest districts, Peter Licata has agreed to a three-year contract with a $360,000 annual salary to lead Broward County Public Schools in Florida, the Sun Sentinel reported.
In Ohio, incoming Columbus City Schools Superintendent Angela Chapman will start with a slightly higher salary than her predecessor. Her three-year contract will pay her e $265,000 annually compared to the $262,520 base salary received by Talisa Dixon, who retired at the end of the 2022-23 school year, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Superintendent pay (plus bonuses)
Leaders may also be curious about the bonuses and merit pay their fellow superintendents are earning as districts lock in their 2023-24 budgets. Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero’s 10% raise—bringing his salary to around $305,000—was approved late last month in a narrow vote by a divided school board, Chalkbeat reported. Marrero’s new contract also includes merit bonuses of up to 12.5% of his salary if he achieves all of his goals.
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In New York, Newburgh Enlarged City School District Superintendent Jackielyn Manning Campbell received a $30,000 pay raise earlier this month, bringing her annual salary up to $300,000 starting on Jan. 1, 2024, according to the Mid Hudson News. Campell was named the district’s superintendent in May 2022.
Other superintendents receiving double-digit percentage raises include Dain Butler at the Alamance-Burlington School System in North Carolina and Scott Menzel at Scottsdale USD in Arizona. The Alamance-Burlington school board unanimously approved Butler’s 10.5% pay hike, which boosts his salary from $197,600 to $218,400, according to the Alamance News. Butler, however, turned down a $5,000 bonus offered by the school board for his performance during his first year on the job, the Alamance News added.
Menzel’s 10% raise came in the form of just more than $21,000 in “performance-based pay” approved by the Scottsdale school board’s 3-2 vote. Menzel got the raise despite “some troubling test scores, enrollment that has not rebounded and a poll showing nearly three-quarters of district students don’t like school,” according to the Scottsdale Progress.
