Top 10 School Superintendents Average $333,000 per year salary

When it comes to overpaid public employees it is difficult to argue that K-12 school superintendents aren’t at the top of the list.

What exactly is it that supers do to justify $300,000 plus salaries not including fringes and pension payments?
Not much from what I can see.

These are not “managers” as we think of them in the private sector. They don’t really mange the employees since the majority are teachers and the 50-60-70 page teacher union contracts define in detail what can and cannot be done to and for teachers.

They don’t mange sales because there are none. They get paid no matter what the revenue is.

They don’t manage costs since they don’t really care what costs are. The union contracts define the vast majority of the costs incurred by school districts and again the supers don’t care because costs have nothing to do with their compensation.

So basically they end up as cheerleaders for the schools, reassuring teachers they will get whatever is in their contracts and reassuring parents their children have the best education available and reassuring taxpayers that their outrageous property taxes are well spent. And they lead the way in the almost-annual pursuit of more tax dollars via referendums.

Basically they are Public Relations experts – never offend anyone (teachers, students, parents, taxpayers) if you can possibly avoid it. That will keep the school board happy and likely produce bigger and better contracts for them in the future. From the looks of these numbers that approach is working extremely well.

Note that the highest paid super, Larry Fleming, works for a district that only has about 1,600 students. That means his salary, not including fringes and outrageous pension payments, costs more than $225/yr. per student.

Oh in case you were wondering Fleming retired at age 55 with a pension of $258,000.

Happy taxpaying!