A Senate bill sent to Gov. Josh Green would keep the state schools superintendent’s annual salary at $240,000 or even increase it, which is considerably more than Green’s pay of $165,000.
A decade ago Act 90 passed out of the 2014 legislative session to raise the “salary cap for the superintendent to $250,000 and mandated an annual performance assessment, which aligns with other DOE employee evaluations.
The provisions are scheduled to be repealed unless Senate Bill 3207 becomes law starting June 29. The bill would remove the cap on the superintendent’s salary.
If Green doesn’t sign it, the current $240,000 salary of Hawaii public schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi will revert to its former limit of $150,000 annually, and the mandatory evaluation of the superintendent will be eliminated.
State Rep. Gene Ward (R, Hawaii Kai-Kalama Valley) called Hayashi a “super guy (who) does his job, and he’s got a super salary — which is right now about $240,000,” during comments on the House floor last week.
Currently, Green earns just over $165,000, Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke makes about $162,000 and Attorney General Anne Lopez earns about $162,000.
“He was a nice man,” Ward said of Hayashi. “But in terms of the salary, I don’t think it’s deserving to go any higher.”
State Rep. Justin Woodson (D, Kahului-Puunene) — who chairs the House Education Committee — said during the House floor session that reverting the superintendent salary to a maximum of $150,000 isn’t “fair” or “justified.”
“A superintendent with comparable qualifications with a similar school size earns $356,000 annually,” Woodson said. “So what justification do we have for that position to only yield 40% of what the market is bearing? That is not fair to me.”
Woodson claimed that Hawaii’s education system and student performance rank in the top 10 nationwide. “That is a direct result from the superintendent, his team, our teachers, our principals and vice principals,” he said.
However, Ward earlier called Hawaii’s public education system mediocre.
“I would be willing to pay $500 million or $100 million, or $10 million, or whatever it takes to get us in the top five or the top 10 in the nation,” Ward said. “Right now we can’t even read and do math in third grade.”
Ward said he would support increasing the superintendent’s salary if the performance was worthy.
“I’m not sure we’ve agreed to reward something that otherwise is mediocrity,” Ward said.
Currently, the state Board of Education does not have a suggested salary for the superintendent.
Former BOE Chair Warren Haruki previously said during a public meeting that the BOE should consider establishing a salary commission to review the superintendent’s salary.
State Rep. Trish La Chica (D, Waipio-Mililani) — vice chair of the House Education Committee — emphasized that SB 3207 does not call for an immediate raise. The superintendent would still be subject to a thorough review process by the BOE.
“This is really a policy of ensuring stability in our leadership,” she said.
Woodson later told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that he’s in “robust and very strong support” of SB 3207 and called Hayashi a “very hard worker.”
The perception of those in opposition to the bill, Woodson said, does not align with reality.
He thanked Hayashi’s team and his leadership in placing Hawaii’s fourth grade reading scores in the top 10 nationwide, and praised Hayashi’s “particular sprinting of how he worked during the fires.”
If the superintendent’s salary cap doesn’t increase, Woodson said other salary problems could arise for positions including the assistant superintendent and deputy superintendent, whose pay are linked to the superintendent’s.
“That would have compounding negative impacts because then you have the complex-area superintendents, whose pay is aligned with the deputies and assistants, and then you have principals and vice principals,” Woodson said. “It would basically force all the compensation down to the school level, potentially downward. That is the wrong direction.”
La Chica said during the House floor session that reducing the superintendent’s salary back to $150,000 could trigger an exodus of “great administration and the leader” who oversee 20,000 employees.
Vanessa Otts, a former DOE teacher for 5-1/2 years, testified in writing that the superintendent should not be entitled to higher pay.
However, she also doesn’t want other administrators’ pay to be limited.
“If the superintendent’s salary reverts to $150,000 after his contract expires in 2025, then anyone making more than that would also have a salary reduction because there’s a rule that none of the Superintendent’s subordinates can earn more than the boss,” Otts wrote.
Otts then told the Star-Advertiser that raising the salary cap could be a good idea if the Legislature provides data in support.
During a March House Education Committee meeting, Haruki pointed out that among six other school districts of comparable size and student enrollment, Hayashi has the lowest salary at $240,000.
Among the six other districts, the second-lowest-paid superintendent earns $280,000. Others are paid $310,000, $330,000, $380,000 and $598,000 — in Georgia’s Gwinnett County, Haruki said.
But Otts said Hayashi’s salary of $240,000 earns him more than 30 0ther state superintendents across the country.
“This session, they were saying how there’s no money for important things in the Department of Education and all they seem to be interested in is raising the salaries of people who are already making six figure salaries,” Otts said. “It seemed like they wanted to raise the salaries simply so that they could raise all the other salaries underneath them.”
STATE SALARIES
>> Schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi: $240,000
>> Gov. Josh Green: just over $165,000
>> Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke: about $162,000
>> Attorney General Anne Lopez: about $162,000
Correction: Hawaii Schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi’s salary is $240,000, not $248,000 as reported in an earlier version of this story. Also, Senate Bill 3207 would remove the cap on the superintendent’s salary. An earlier version said it would allow the BOE to pay the superintendent as much as $250,000.
