A new law requiring administrator employment agreements to be approved in open session of school board meetings created a sensitive situation when it came to the new contract for Morgan Hill Unified School District’s top education leader.
While three assistant superintendent contracts passed unanimously and with no trustee comments at the June 6 school board meeting, the same could not be said for the new four-year deal awarded to MHUSD Superintendent Steve Betando.
In a roll call vote, the school board voted 4-3 to approve Betando’s contract that included a base salary of $262,890.82 for the 2017-18 school year (as well as retroactive $255,233.81 for the current year) along with a 3 percent raise for each subsequent year upon a positive evaluation.
The new contract, which replaced Betando’s existing agreement that was not set to expire until June 2019, runs from July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2021.
Board President Donna Ruebusch, Vice President Ron Woolf and Trustees Tom Arnett and Mary Patterson voted to approve the contract. Trustees Gino Borgioli, David Gerard and Teresa Murillo voted against it.
Contract negotiations are worked out in closed session away from the public eye. However, the new law requires a “verbal summary of the proposed compensation included in the employment agreement for the administrator to be given to the public prior to board action on the contract,” according to the June 6 agenda.
Ruebusch read each summary aloud at Tuesday’s meeting, including the salaries of Assistant Supes Kirsten Perez ($196,711), Ramon Zavala ($191,136) and Fawn Myers ($196,711) for the 2017-18 year. But after finishing Betando’s compensation summary, there was some commentary from trustees.
At first, Murillo and Patterson said they misunderstood during negotiations about the 3 percent annual raise for the duration of the contract. Betando receives at least a 3 percent raise unless the teachers union receives a higher percent raise—in which case he receives the higher percentage raise.
“We can’t renegotiate the contract in open session. We had settled on contract language and that’s why we are at this point,” cautioned Ruebusch after Borgioli explained those terms to Patterson and Murillo.
Patterson showed her support by stating that Betando’s and the other administrators’ salaries paled in comparison to those of high-tech industry engineers and executives.
“I would flip that and pay the classified staff and teachers and superintendents the salaries that they are getting and the stock options they are getting,” said Patterson, who also later mentioned that Betando declined his 3 percent raise for the previous school year.
Betando said he was surprised that there were questions about his new deal since it was agreed upon in closed session and urged the board to go into private quarters if the board needed to clear up anything prior to a public vote.
Borgioli, however, contested that they were just clarifying some areas of the new contract and that the purpose of the new law was to allow trustees to say their piece in open session and show transparency to the community.
“Not all of us voted in favor of (the new contract), but the board voted to go forward,” Borgioli said. “Unfortunately, we are not a high tech company that has stock options….In my mind, a bona fide contract was already in place that we didn’t have to extend any further.”
Woolf was uncomfortable discussing the superintendent’s contract in open session since the terms were already approved by the board during closed session. “Once you voted in closed session, you were locked in as far as I’m concerned,” Woolf said.
Ruebusch tried to call the vote after a motion was made by Woolf and seconded by Patterson, but Gerard wanted to make a statement as well. Gerard said he had spoken with leaders of the district’s various bargaining units who were “concerned about the disparity” in pay between classified and certificated workers compared to the administrators.
“That really is the root of my concern,” said Gerard, who claimed it was not a personal attack on the superintendent. “I have an obligation to people who work in the district. It’s not whether they approve or disapprove of the leader. It’s a question of what they think is equity.”
All administrator contracts are posted on the district website at mhusd.org.
