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While you are at it lets take some salary away from the governer and other the state representitves also. If the education budget has to be lowered in these tough times so should theres.

This article shines the light of truth to a large problem in the state of Texas. In Beaumont, when you bring up concerns against the BISD superintendent you are labeled a racist and the spokeswoman for the district as well as Dr. Carrol supporters comment that he is a target of “…high tech lynching…”, again with a counterattack of racism. The fact of the matter is that he is the highest paid superintendent in the state of Texas. He earns more than the Governor of Texas by a long shot and this is just absurd….it has nothing at all to do with race but rather pride and downright pompous attitude by the leadership at BISD. I will grant that Dr. Carrol may have been the right superintdendent back when he first started but he certainly is not the right super for the present because Dr. Carrol and the other leadership at BISD have become arrogant, pompous in their decision making and it shows in their communication with the community. They have lost the confidence of the community, the students and the faculty and just like the wave of frustration taken hold of the Arab world, the BISD leadership should take notice that we want something better from them, we want an excellent education for our children at the best price possible. We want the exuberant spending and air of elitism quelled at replaced by frugal spending in regards to administration costs and redirected to keep teachers in the classroom and creating an environment of community. We want our children educated, not a sports arena complex that does nothing to promote good learning. Oh, and by the way, on top of Dr. Carrol’s salary, bonus’ and other perks we also had to pay for each letter of his nickname on the sprawling sports complex that sits mostly empty (without generating funds for the BISD) on 85 acres and over 10,000 seats empty for the majority of the school year. If Dr. Carrol cared about this community and the students he would put forth that the administration salaries be cut in order to save teachers in the school district but what arrogant and pompous leader would ever do something like that because he really thinks it is all about him.

While I agree that superintendent salaries seem high, the suggestion to cut their salaries as solution to the funding problem is laughable at best. The article states that it would save $20 Mil per biennium. Compared to the $9 B that are missing, that is like offering $2 if you owe $900.

The article simply uses the superintendent salaries to suggest that most non-teaching positions are overpaid. Fact is that the majority of those positions are bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers, teacher aids, secretaries and other low paying jobs.

If you mention over-paid position, why not cut salaries for head coaches? The head coach of the University of Texas for example, is I believe, by now up to $5 Mio and UT received $318 Mil from the State of Texas http://giving.utexas.edu/why-give/why-we-need-your-support/

Texas has 254 Counties and somewhere north of 1250 School districts each of which has a superintendent and all manner of administrative overhead!

THAT ladies and gentlemen is what we need far less of!

Here is just one example and not from a Rural county either.

The Kendleton School District lies in Fort Bend County Texas and has a total enrollment of 78 students. The superintendent of schools there gets $86,000 a year, or $1102.56 per student enrolled, to manage a school district with 78 students enrolled!

There are hundreds of others not quite so bad as that but close! Does anyone else see a problem?

Another problem not addressed by this article is the number of Asst. Superintendents there are that also make 6 figure salaries. I don’t begrudge someone making a good salary for their work, but how much work does a superintendent do that has 6 Asst. Superintendents….and how much work do they do? Also look into the football coaches who are employed as Administrators because they don’t have a teaching degree, and can’t teach anything but football. Many of them make 6 figure salaries also. There are so many ways to cut school budgets without cutting teachers, I’m just afraid we are blind to some of them for personal reasons…like Football.

I agree, school superintendents should not make more money than the governor, Allow me to extend your logic. No one should make more money than the President of the United States. Currently the salary of the President is $400,000. I propose that CEO’s and other wealthy individuals must return all earnings in excess of $400,000 to their companies or face a 100% tax on all earnings over $400,000. Companies can then use the executive salaries to improve the salary and benefits of lower-paid workers and lower the prices of their products. Just think what would happen if we applied this rule to executives of oil companies. Gas might return to a price below $3.00.

Let’s be clear – list the value of all the perks also. The perks often equal or exceed the salary ! Chaffeured (sic) cars, clothing and travel allowances, office supply/ redecorating allowances, paid insurance and medical for family, fully vested retirement pkgs., personal assistants, and more !

The ratio of teachers to non teachers is NOT 1:1. Where did those facts come from? Just sounds good? Like the 90% guns in Mexico BS?

There needs to be a formula where the supt. salary is set as a multiple of a beginning teacher’s salary. AND… not a multiple in the thousands.

exuberant salaries?

What’s with the Governor’s salaries vs. Superintendent’s salaries? They both make too much for doing essentially nothing but enriching themselves.

A SPORT~S COACH AT UNIVERSITY OF AUSTIN MAKES 2 MILLION, YES INDEED, THAT IS NO JOKE: FOR WHAT ??? CHECK YOUR TELEPHONE BILL AND LOOK AT THE TAXES WE PAY; TAXES ARE MORE THAN THE PHONE ITSELF; THE TAXES WE PAY GOES TO FEED THOSE * RETARDS *

Where does this G.M.Miller get the idea that corporate pay should have anything to do with what the President makes? Being a productive, contributing, salary earning member of the business world has nothing to do with a politician’s salary. How many jobs have poor people or poor companies ever offered him? And, how much financial benefit has he received from any politician? The line of thought involved in “if they make more than the Pres. they should have to give it back…” is going too close to Socialism for my comfort. If they’ve managed to get high enough in the business world to merit the salary, they earn it. Don’t make me give any of my hard earned salary back to those who haven’t made it — or share it with any who are too lazy or inept to earn it on their own. That’s what Free Enterprise is all about, not submitting to the Socialist view of being forced to “share” with the masses.

@Bennett Johnson; The state reps and senators are paid a modicum of a salary, the last time I looked it was $600 and I don’t recall if that was monthly or annually; HOWEVER, they get a per diem when in session AND the biggest thing is after serving a couple of terms they are fully vested in the the State’s retirement system HOWEVER, it is not the regular employee’s retirement system, but one that is set up based on the annual salaries of District Judge’s and District Attorney’s. Anytime you see legislation for DJ’s or DA’s to receive a raise, it’s all about a retirement increase for past and present elected reps. Oh and Perry’s is linked to this as well.

Only in Texas can a person make $600 for representing the people and retire a millionaire. Don’t you just love this country?!

Mr. Earl Cutter made the point more clearly to many of us. It reminds me of that city manager in California that was getting an enoumous salary from the small city that was going broke. I am sure that there are other school districts in Texas facing the same dilemna. And now all these private high schools asking for funds. Check out the salaries on those requests. Even the Head Start pays its directors at the local level a very high salary. And many of them are not required to possess a degree in any field of study.

Apparently Dukes-Strey did not recognize the facetious nature of my comment. Why are you outraged that a school superintendent makes a salary in excess of $347,000. If I buy computer software from Oracle, a portion of the purchase goes to the CEO’s salary in excess of $56 million. If my doctor prescribes medication manufactured by Merck. a portion of my purchase goes to the salary of the CEO who makes more than $49 million a year. In defense of Dr. Thomas, he is responsible for over 2800 employees and a budget of 163.5 million.
I spent part of my teaching career as a teacher-advocate interacting with superintendents on behalf of teachers who were members of my association. In my experience, superintendents often worked 12-hour days. The job requires the ability to communicate with diverse groups of people. Diplomacy and a thick skin are necessary.
It’s ironic that I find myself defending superintendents. However, during the past few months I have read and heard some well-intentioned but uninformed suggestions. Cut football! Cut all athletics. Cut central-office staff! A school district can take all of those actions and still faculty will have to be cut. If Dr. Thomas’s salary is cut back to $150,000 as you suggest, it will save 3 teachers and one para-professional.
This has been a train wreck in the making since the 2006 legislature rewrote tax laws. These tax laws were supposed to be a “tax swap”. The new tax plan was supposed to generate the same revenue as the tax laws which were replaced. However, the truth is the new plan raises $10 billion less than the old system. Fortunately for educators, Obama’s 2009 stimulus provided money to employ teachers. This year there is no stimulus. The recession only adds to the problem. It has been estimated the 100,000 teachers will lose their positions. However, even if the economy were stronger, many districts would face cutbacks.
It is my hope that your organization will take the lead and convince the legislature to enact fair tax policy which provide the services necessary for the great state of Texas.

If we would privatize education and schools and those employed there paid based on how successful a business they ran all of this noise would be for nothing.
Anytime the government TAKES money ( you will notice unlike Harry Reid stated) is NOT voluntarily)
and spreads it around like manure, unlike a farmer when they do NOT have to have a successful corp, they can just take more money and continue without the consequence of loosing the farm.

The time has come to get rid of public education.

If the author would separate the administrators’ and coaches’ salaries from the educational support staffs’ salaries, she’d find that the support staff are making far less than the teachers…..and that the administrators and coaches are making far more than both teachers and support staff combined…..

….how about eliminating any position where the name contains the titie “vice” or “assistant”?…..that would cut a lot out of the budget….

Doggett and Isaac are going to be in Kyle tomorrow, Ap 2, at 11 at the Gregg-Clark Park. Come pay a visit and ask some questions.

In Michigan whole counties share one administrator. Quite a cost-cutter!

This was sent to me:
The Texas Education Agency has received a number of inquiries regarding the impact of the Doggett amendment to HR 1586, also known as the Education Jobs Bill. The amendment creates additional hurdles that only Texas must overcome to draw down the $830 million that is allocated for Texas public schools, including making Texas the only state required to use federal Title I formulas instead of state funding formulas to distribute these funds to school districts. The Effects of the Doggett Amendment below shows the amount of funding that districts would have received with and without the additional hurdles put in place by the Doggett amendment.

HAYS CISD $2,625,300.21 $575,451.56 ($2,049,848.65)
CYPRESS-FAIRBANKS ISD $17,086,020.59 $6,867,602.24 ($10,218,418.35)
FORT BEND ISD $11,177,177.58 $4,023,380.50 ($7,153,797.08)
KATY ISD $9,523,659.56 $2,463,022.24 ($7,060,637.32)
LEWISVILLE ISD $7,921,010.86 $936,803.55 ($6,984,207.31)
FRISCO ISD $6,668,513.78 $136,187.99 ($6,532,325.79)
PLANO ISD $8,444,701.90 $2,886,753.53 ($5,557,948.38)
ROUND ROCK ISD $6,645,979.61 $1,571,153.95 ($5,074,825.66)
NORTHSIDE ISD $14,802,698.59 $10,017,213.44 ($4,785,485.15)
KELLER ISD $5,189,581.99 $631,001.34 ($4,558,580.64)

Obama bribed the Texas Teachers Union with $65 million in pension retirement funding guarantees through Obama Care to secure their support for passage of Obama Care. This and Doggett withholding the $830 million funding allocated to Texas by the DOE which is only giving back to Texas taxpayers a small portion of what Texans are taxed for school funding. Is this extortion?

When do we stand up and say enough is enough. Lloyd Doggett is screwing his own constituents for his personal political gain.

I do not begrudge our Governor, his salary… and certainly don’t think any High School Superintendant’s job can be compared to it. What I “do” think a travesty… is the fact that many of our HS Superintendants make much more in salary than our top General in the “Middle East”, whose burdens, responsibilities and capabilities far outweigh theirs…and is (successfully) leading our troops. And not only that…the travesty goes on infinitum in our Cities and Towns across Texas in the form of “duplication” of Districts, Administrations, Transportation, Plants, Services and Maintenance. Why can’t “Economies Of Scale” be brought to bear to deal with these problems just as with Business and with other Entities? Just a year or two ago our legislature was beside itself, trying to find a way to lower the property taxes that are such a burden on Texas Homeowners…well 90% or better of that yearly burden supports our schools.That’s where we should find the savings too!!!

Are there hard numbers out there on how many HISD parents contribute nothing in the way of public school taxes? What are the percentages for HISD parents who pay taxes, HISD parents who don’t pay taxes, Houston citizens with no children who pay school taxes? I would love to see some stats.

Why are we taxing property instead of people?

Can you tell me the salaries of the Executive Directors of the Texas Association of School Administrators, Texas Association of School Boards and the organization that school superintendents belong.