Mr. Richardson, if I understand correctly, you are proposing that the principals, staff, and faculty of the five schools do the job of the deputy superintendent for curriculum development. Do you intend that they should do the extra work for free, or do you intend that the deputy superintendent's salary be divided among them?

What do you propose as a fair salary for a superintendent of a school system of our size? Even if the salary were dropped to zero, we?d save only $200,000, and there would still be the costs for his/her benefits and pension. Perhaps the position could be eliminated completely and the school system could run itself?

Dennis Walcott, the Chancellor of New York City's approx. 1700 schools only gets $217,000 a year.
I am not opposed to fair compensation for the Superintendent, I am opposed to the cuts always coming in the form of teacher and program cuts. 5.32% for some during these economic times is a lot. $200,000 in savings might be small, but it is a move in the right direction.

I'll ask again...what would you consider fair compensation? What value do you place on the work done by a school superintendent?

Perhaps the governor and the chancellor should get raises? No public servant, whether in education or government, get paid anything near the salaries of corporate CEOs. Not to mention professional athletes and entertainers. Do you value their work more highly than that of public servants?

You cannot compare CEOs, athletes and entertainers salaries to the Superintendent. They are all totally different businesses/organizations.

How about the police officers then? They don't even come close to these figures. Don't people value their work more highly?
The teachers and administrators make double, triple what they make.

Denise Peters

I am a public servant and have been one for 32 years. Yes I will agree that most are underpaid for what they do. Professional athletes and celebrities only make money as long as people keep filling theaters and stadiums. There is nothing I can do about that. We can't continue doing things as usual. A school superintendent should get paid based on the size of his or her district. Based on budget cuts in every level of government, how much do you think we should pay? We need everyone to help fix this problem with funding. Across the board cuts would have shown leadership in a difficult economic time.

I, for one, do not value the work of police officers more highly than I value the work of educators. Both are valuable; we can't do without either.

Teachers do not make double or triple what police officers make. The average teacher salary in New York is ~$57,000, and the average patrol officers salary is ~$60,000. That is, they are about the same.

The superintendent's salary of $200,000 does not seem unreasonable to me given the responsibilities of the job and the education and experience required to do it well.

Actually, we could do something about the fact athletes and celebrities get paid so much. We could stop filling the theaters and stadiums, and we could use the money we save to pay our educators better (or at least maintain their pay). It's a matter of priorities.

One additional comment. The comparison between the superintendent's salary and the governor's salary is not a valid one, because the governor's salary does not reflect the value of the perquisites of his office: free room (and board?), household staff, use of government vehicles (including aircraft), and so on.

Let's stop comparing apples to oranges. Please leave the irrational compensation of sports figures and celebrities to an Oprah re-run. It only serves to obfuscate this discussion. It is certainly valid to compare the compensation of the NYC schools chancellor to our superintendent. On the surface, I would agree that it is disproportionate.

It is misleading to speak of salaries and not of overall compensation. If we did, we would see that the number is much higher. If an employee gets to retire after 20-25 years and then receives a pension of 80% of salary for the next 30-40 years and possibly medical benefits for life or at an advantageous price, it is easy to envision that someone getting $60,000 a year in salary, could actually be compensated in excess of $100,000 per year.
My guess is that since one never knows until an employee files the necessary paperwork to retire, that these number are not equated. One could make reasonable assumptions on what this might look like based on what the average amount of years per employee has been the norm.
I have to imagine these numbers are known. Just wonder why we don't hear of them

I guess the Superintendent has more responsibilities than the Governor of NY and the Chancellor of NYC schools and deserves more compensation. I mean look at Cornwalls huge school district. C'mon...cut from the top. Spread the responsibilities. Every other ageny in Government is doing it. I'm up over 6500 in school taxes alone on a 375000 house not to mention property taxes. For what?

Comparing Police to Educators is not fair, but it's interesting the wide diversity in $$ between the two. We all support the police for the fine work they do in protecting us, but we also support our educators for filling our children's mind with the knowledge they need to become successful. I believe that most Town officials are overpaid. I think the Superintendent is doing a fine job, but $200,000 per years seems very steep. I bet the principals are paid into the $100,000 range too, which I think is crazy as well. I thought it was interesting the other day that I noticed that the Middle school classrooms do not have AC, but the main office's AC was blasting and the door was proped open. Who pays this bill and why did it take me (parent) to close the door. How often does this happen? Police & the Military are risking their lives daily to protect us and get paid no where near this $$.