It seems that they are treating this as if it were the Holy Grail of all of the School District’s salaries. Even more so than their own past Sthealth care costs. The Board is quite willing to show us the Superintendent’s base salary of $123K. But I can only guess why it feels the public need not know all the facts; only what the Board wants us to know. Why? Is Dr. McGaughey’s non-salary compensation that great? Would we, the public, be outraged if we saw her projected severance package?
Truthful to a Point
This District and this Board seem thoroughly scrupulous in their carefully worded, semantically correct, “narrowly scored” comparison of the "salaries" paid various other local Superintendents. But, they forgot to mention that the figures given are not the total salary paid to our Superintendent or the others for doing their jobs. This Board remains faithful and factual up to a point, but not totally truthful in its public presentation. By not using the more accurate term “base salary,” this Board thinks it can limit public knowledge about what the Superintendent actually receives for doing her job.
Vivid Imaginations
A quick Internet search revealed a partial list of some of the items other district superintendents are being paid beyond their base salaries:
Expense Allowances for Gasoline,
Auto Insurance and Maintenance costs
Payment of their Health and Medical Insurance premiums
Performance-based bonuses
Sick and vacation day buyouts
Tax-sheltered retirement accounts
Reimbursements for Medicare and Social Security taxes,
PERS Contributions,
Health Care and Medical Insurance payments,
Even, reimbursements of Health Club fees.
Judging by this staggering variety of perks being handed out, it seems the only limits to the non-salary compensations for a superintendent are their own imaginations and what they can get their employers, our elected district overseers, to pay.
In Board We Trust
But this is only the latest example of the School Board withholding pertinent facts, thereby leaving the public less than fully informed about matters facing the District. Another example would be the Ladera Heights transfer. The School Board is factual, but only up to a point. A majority on the Board denies the public the whole truth in trying to manipulate the uninformed public into once again trusting its judgement. Some Board members have squandered that trust over these past few years, on other ethical issues, some still left unresolved, and they are far from having earned back the public trust.
A Need for Transparency
At the last School Board meeting, member Stew Bubar interrupted my comments, calling my inquiry into the Superintendent’s compensation inappropriate. Is it ever inappropriate for a community member to ask how and where the public’s money is being spent? My issue again is not with the Superintendent but with the Board and its lack of transparency. I was only inquiring about the School District cost of her compensation, not her personal wealth. If it was inappropriate of me to address the Superintendent directly, then I apologize. I guess I should have directed the question to her employer, the Board. But it was the Board’s lack of information on the true, complete District cost of the Superintendent’s compensation that compelled my question in the first place.
Does She or Doesn’t She?
I don’t begrudge the Superintendent her contractual compensation, whatever it is. She probably deserves every penny of it. But, these types of possible extra, non-salary pay additions again raise the question of just how much does the Board’s only employee actually receive in total compensation?
Signed and Delivered
Both the School Board and Dr. McGaughey agreed on a contract calling for her to receive $123K in base salary. Now a majority seems to think that she should receive over $30K more than what her contract stipulated. Has she been acting like an under-valued, under-paid, disgruntled employee? One only has to look at our teachers for that example. If she wanted more, she should have asked to re-negotiate her contract. Maybe her lower base salary of $123K is being enhanced enough by her additional non-salary compensation to satisfy her needs. We don’t really know. When the School Board discusses teachers’ salaries, it always includes the District cost of their benefits. In the School Board’s rush to bestow on her its retro-active raise and superior severance package, why didn’t it include her benefits? How much do her unlimited medical benefits cost the District? What are the projected cost increases to the District of her retirement if she were to receive a $30K retroactive raise?
About This Timing
Why does the School Board want to raise her pay to $154K retroactively after her announced retirement when her contract states she is to receive $123K? Unless there is some kind of performance pay incentive written into her contract, she should receive just what was agreed upon in her contract. Could it be Dr. McGaughey has received personal assurances from a majority of Board members that she would be taken care of upon her retirement? Were promises made by Board members, promises to be paid for with public money? If true, this majority is going to do what they want to do and ram it through without even trying to justify it to the public.
Time to Explain Yourselves
The Board should either legally make the public aware of the Superintendent’s total compensation package or withdraw it from the package and discuss it separately. By linking the School Board’s only employee with other District employees, a majority are forcing the rest of the Board and the public to accept the Superintendent’s still unjustified raise with the more warranted ones. It seems unfair to hold the other District employees’ step increases hostage just because of the Board’s lack of t transparency in another area..
Follow the Fleecing
Although not ever wanting the School District administration to turn into a hostile working environment, the current relationship between the Superintendent and the Board seems to have gone well beyond a cordial, working relationship. Their costly coziness has reared its ugly head once again with the Board taking a lesson from the U.S. military. Not long after receiving her previously overdue longevity raises, and after a Closed Session vote by the Board convinced Dr. McGaughey that she was in line for a large, retroactive raise, she announced her retirement. But this Board will follow military tradition by handing out promotions to its career officers just before they retire. But they may go the military one better. The Board still plans to publicly confirm its non-binding Closed Session vote by officially conferring a retro-active raise to an administrator who already has announced her retirement!
Can anyone explain how this is sound fiscal management?
