A Board of Education committee deferred action Tuesday on proposed raises for 23 senior Department of Education executives, with some board members citing concerns about paying out across-the-board increases.
Schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi had proposed 4.5 percent raises for her top executives, including the department’s deputy superintendent, six assistant superintendents and 15 complex-area superintendents. The raises, which collectively would cost $143,250, were discussed Tuesday by the board’s Human Resources Committee.
The Board of Education is authorized under state law to set the salaries for these positions, without exceeding that of the superintendent, who earns $200,000.
Matayoshi had argued that the increases are needed to help with recruitment and retention, as well as to maintain parity with the salaries of school principals, who have received annual raises under collective bargaining. An arbitration panel two years ago awarded annual 4.5 percent pay raises through June 2017 to the DOE’s approximately 850 principals, vice principals and other school- and district-level educational officers represented by the Hawaii Government Employees Association.
“I feel that our executive team has really come together within the last couple of years, with the right kind of focus, the right skill set, the right experience,” Matayoshi said.”They’re doing incredibly hard work. They’re doing good work to move what is a very large ship and try to turn it in the right direction. It has not been easy to recruit this team.”
The deputy superintendent acts as chief academic officer for the department; the assistant superintendents run central offices that oversee human resources, fiscal services, information technology, school facilities and support services, curriculum and instruction, and strategy and innovation. Complex-area superintendents, meanwhile, oversee the 15 districts statewide, which are made up of two to four school complexes, each consisting of a high school and the elementary and middle schools that feed into it.
Matayoshi noted that “a number” of school principals earn more than the deputy superintendent. Current principal salaries range from $102,000 to $185,400, according to the DOE.
“When the (educational officers) receive their increases, it begins to once again create that disparity in pay between the complex-area superintendents and those they supervise, and also the assistant superintendents and those they supervise,” Matayoshi said. “We’re not seeking to get them to be higher than all of the (educational officers) — that’s not a practical solution — but we do think that retaining parity is something that’s important for our executives.”
To put the raises in context, BOE member Jim Williams disclosed information from a personnel roster of positions and salaries marked confidential. He said that 13 principals earn more than the deputy superintendent; more than 20 principals make more than the senior assistant superintendent; more than 30 principals are paid more than the highest-paid complex-area superintendent; and more than 70 principals earn more than four of the department’s assistant superintendents.
“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that; I’m just saying that puts into perspective the kind of salaries that we’re paying,” Williams said. “It’s not like working in the private sector, where the top management makes 10 times what anybody else makes.”
A few BOE members took issue with the approach of across-the-board increases.
“Your evaluations should be supporting whatever increase you’re giving, and some may warrant a bigger increase and some may warrant less increase,” said BOE member Kenneth Uemura. “But when you give across the board, you’re really telling the next guy, ‘You’re just as good as me’ or ‘I’m just as bad as you,’ but they’re getting the same increase. So there’s no incentive for anybody to do better, in my opinion.”
The committee continued its discussion in executive session before voting to defer action.
Brian De Lima, chairman of the Human Resources Committee, said afterward that the committee didn’t have enough information to make an informed decision.
“We’re asking the superintendent to reconsider the recommendation and to come back with either more information to support the request for increases or perhaps come up with a different proposal that takes into account the positions of the various board members,” De Lima said.
For example, he said, the committee wants additional information on performance evaluations for the positions, comparisons with collectively bargained increases for other employees, and consideration of individual raise amounts rather than across-the-board increases.
Matayoshi said after the meeting that the DOE has historically implemented across-the-board increases to mirror collectively bargained increases. She said the department annually evaluates its senior executives on performance but that they are not compared with one another.
“Every one has different challenges based on the work they need to do in their complex area or in their office. How we would figure that out is something that we’re going to have to talk about,” she said of the request to consider differentiating raises.
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Clarification: State Department of Education officials have clarified that the highest-paid public school principal earns $185,400. In an earlier version of this story, DOE officials said principal salaries range from $102,000 to $179,000.
