The school district board and the new superintendent are
hammering out a new contract, but mum’s the word on who the new
superintendent is or how much he’ll be paid.
The school district board and the new superintendent are hammering out a new contract, but mum’s the word on who the new superintendent is or how much he’ll be paid.
The Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury shared their thoughts about superintendent compensation this summer: there is very little scrutiny of superintendent compensation packages, the jury concluded.
The Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury is an investigatory body comprised of 19 citizens selected by the court to serve a one-year term. Their primary responsibilities are to serve as civil watchdog, to look into citizen complaints and the occasional criminal investigation. They released two reports about education spending in the county this summer, one regarding superintendent and trustee compensation and benefits and the other regarding inventory practices.
While Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Education President Don Moody said he’d like to see some changes reflected in the new superintendent’s contract compared to former superintendent Alan Nishino’s, Moody wasn’t ready to say what specifically was on the table.
“Let’s wait until it’s done,” Moody said. The board met twice in closed session last week to work on the new superintendent’s contract.
Nishino, who retired in June, was often criticized by the district’s two unions for his compensation package. Nishino’s total compensation including salary, health insurance and car allowance was almost $214,000, which was similar to the pay of Gilroy and Milpitas’s superintendents, according to the grand jury report. Nishino led 9,400 students in 16 schools. But Nishino and his peers made more per student than do their counterparts at larger districts. For example, San Jose Unified’s superintendent made $231,000 to oversee 30,900 students at 53 schools. That’s a cost of $7.47 per student, while the superintendents in Morgan Hill, Gilroy and Milpitas made about $22 per student, the report states.
While the grand jury cried foul at what they viewed to be unjust compensation, Morgan Hill’s response was that compensation is a local decision. The board disagreed with the jury’s recommendation that they should “ensure that Superintendent salaries and increases take into account the number of schools, teachers and students they oversee, and are tied to the district’s students’ progress and quantifiable metrics.”
The board responded that this recommendation is not warranted, or is not reasonable.
“This is a local decision and it depends on the situation,” the board wrote in the September response to the grand jury’s June report.
The board also disagreed with the grand jury’s recommendation that a local, preliminary search be conducted before hiring a search firm to find a superintendent.
“Many times the hiring of a superintendent is time sensitive and going through a preliminary local search may not be necessary or produce effective results,” the board responded.
The board disagreed with the finding in general, that hiring costly search firms – like the district’s hiring of The Cosca Group for $23,000 – is unnecessary.
“The hiring of a superintendent is the most important job of the board. They should use all resources to assist them in hiring the best superintendent for their district,” the board retorted.
Trustees agreed with many of the grand jury’s findings regarding inventory practices and agreed to review the state education code to make sure inventory control conditions were being followed. But, the board was skeptical that in the district’s current financial situation they would be able to scrutinize inventories as closely as the grand jury recommended. Moody stressed that the district was just fulfilling its obligation to respond to the grand jury reports, and noted that Morgan Hill Unified wasn’t being singled out.
“We’re just getting caught up in this whole review,” he said. “Everything we submitted looked to be in order. We’re not concerned about it at all.”
Moody advised the Times to speak with Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini about the grand jury’s findings. Tognazzini was at a conference and unavailable by press time.
