Maintain Equity

Let’s take a moment and explore all of the ways the dicstrict head can get a raise.

1. The superintendent receives an annual raise of 3.5%. This is to emulate the “average” step and column increase that teachers receive. I do not know where this number comes from though. Teachers can only move up a column 4 times in their career. Also, if we look at the base salary to the max salary available to APT, over 20 years, this averages to a raise of 2.5%. Also, it is not uncommon for our fantastic, committed teachers in this district to work 35 years. For those lucky few, their average annual step column increase is just under 1.5%. This 3.5% step/column increase awarded to the superintendents also doesn’t require that the superintendent receives 15 units of postsecondary credit; we have to literally pay for our raises. (Prize of the week goes to the poor APT member that advances from Step 1 Column 1 BA<30 to Step 2 Column 2 BA+30 and receives a whopping raise of -$1. Yes that’s right: negative 1. Check it out below.)

A portion of the APT salary schedule for the 22-23 school year. Check out that fantastic raise from step 1 to 2 while advancing from <30 units to 30+ units.

2. Superintendents receive longevity bonuses. After 5 years, they receive a 2% raise, and after 7 years, they receive a 3% raise. It’s almost the exact opposite of what teachers get. When teachers get to year 12, their salary simply stagnates for a while, they don’t get the 3.5% annual step/column increase, they don’t get “longevity.”

3. Superintendents get compensated for masters and doctoral degrees attached to the administrative salary schedule (unlike ours). Currently this number is $2,055 and $3,425 respectively. Is a superintendent with a PhD more valuable to the district than a teacher with that distinction? Why don’t you check out their theses for yourself: Dr. Haglund, Dr. Nelson

4. Superintendents get the “me too” clause, already addressed.

5. Superintendents get full benefits (technically not salary or a raise, but still frustrating)

6. Superintendents can negotiate raises with the board whenever they like. Remember a couple years ago when they got a big raise out of the blue at the same time saying we don’t deserve a small raise. I believe the number they offered us was 0.27%. I remember.

7. The board can give the superintendent a bonus. Here’s the whole line: “3.D. The Board may consider a bonus based on performance.” That’s it. Just a “Here’s more money, Dr. D”

Now let’s talk about base pay. In the 22-23 school year, the superintendent base pay was $369,780. During the 19-20 school year, this was $298,225 (he probably got this huge raise post covid because of how stressful and hard that situation was), his initial base salary in 2017 was $265,000. So over these last 6 years, Dr. Haglund has seen a raise of 39.5% (this is 6.9% annual growth and that’s just base salary and doesn’t include the new benefits the superintendents enjoy). Over this same time frame, the highest cell on the APT salary schedule increased by 13.9%.

As this highest-in-the-district salary continues to grow out of control, I want to take a moment to explore what might happen after Dr. Haglund retires. My speculation is that PUSD will hire a new superintendent with a salary similar or higher to Dr. Haglund's final salary. This is counter to how teachers are hired: teachers retire at the top of the salary schedule and new hires start at the bottom (top and bottom might be the wrong words as the table increases downward, but you know what I mean). However, if we look, historically, at the superintendents in Pleasanton we see: Parvin Ahmadi’s final contract had a base salary of $223,844, Rick Rubino (remember him) had a starting base salary of $256,000, and again, David Haglund started at $265,000. This number is only going to grow; it won’t go down. This 3 superintendent change over is a salary increase of 5.8% annually, roughly on pace with what Haglund has been getting and my estimate for future growth.

Let’s first look at how superintendent salary compares to teachers salary assuming they both receive the same percent change every year. Let’s assume for this portion, that the average annual salary increase for APT is around 2% (over the last 20 years this has been 1.9%). We can see below that the superintendent salary, in green, is increasing “faster” than the highest cell on the APT contract, in purple. This is because the difference between exponential functions with equal growth rates is also exponential, in red. Even “fair” isn’t fair.

Superintendent Base Salary in Green assuming only APT “me too” raises, f(x), highest cell on APT in Purple, g(x), and salary difference in red.

Yet superintendent salary isn’t a growth of 2% per year. It is, at minimum, 3.5% per year, but in reality it is more, much more. Over the last few years it has been near 7%, on average. So what are the ramifications of this? We are poised to see a superintendent with a $1 million base salary within the next 17 years. This estimate below includes the average APT salary increase, the 3.5% step/column, and the 5 year longevity bonus (this is approximated for simplicity). It does not include the 7 year longevity bonus, the separate contract negotiations upper management occasionally does, or the bonus money the board decides to throw at Dr. D. This is an average of just under 6% raise per year. What will our 20 years-of-service salary 17 years from now be? $172,235. (I will likely be at Foothill 17 years from now, having sat at this step for the last few years, twiddling my thumbs, supporting 2 kids in college, watching my purchasing power decrease as inflation continues to rise faster than my raises.)

Currently the salary ratio between superintendent and max APT is 3; when Ahmadi left, it was 2.24, when Haglund started in 2017 it was 2.45. In 17 years it will be 5.8. This is not equity.

Fair estimate of Superintendent Base Salary in Green, f(x), highest cell on APT in Purple, g(x), salary difference in red, and $1 million dollar threshold in blue.

Looking at the above graph is amazingly defeating. Let’s say we, APT, is able to get a 20% raise this year, which we deserve based solely on recent inflation and the new money into the district, that will simply quicken the superintendent race to a million by 3 years. By the year 2037, the superintendent will have a $1 million dollar base salary; max APT salary will be under $200K. This is my prediction, and there is nothing we can do about it.

One more point: We have a superintendent and 4 assistant superintendents. The assistant superintendents base pay is roughly 70% of the head, so we roughly get 5 superintendents for the price of 4. Buy 4 get one free; that’s a pretty good deal if you ask me. Anyway, projecting out those 15ish years. We will now be paying $4 million dollars for superintendents plus their benefits, extra salary, etc. This alone is about 2% of the total PUSD budget. No longer a drop in the bucket.