Scrutiny of Prince George's School Administrative Salaries Grows

Members of the Board of Education are scheduled to adopt a fiscal 2012 budget within the week that would , curtail programs and increase class sizes.

The nearly $1.7 billion budget, first proposed by Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. in December, represents a 3.3 percent increase over the current fiscal year and includes a $155 million shortfall.

Few, if any, invite such cuts to a school district already hemorrhaging students. Based on next year’s pre-K to 12th grade enrollment figure of 125,733 students, the county will have shed nearly 4,000 kids since 2009.

The housing slump hasn’t helped revenues either, officials say.

“It (budget cutting) is a tough decision,” said Matthew Stanski, Hite’s chief financial officer. “It’s year four in a row (now) we’ve really had to go through something like this,” he said. “It’s now to the point we’ve cut so much you can’t help but impact programs that we like — like Pre-k, ROTC and things like that.”

Others over the last four weeks have begged to differ, particularly with respect to salaries within the school system’s central administration offices. In fact, during a public hearing implored the Board of Education to rethink the cuts.

“We need to look at how we have allocated our funds, our positions, etc.,” said Saunders, narrowing in on pay gaps between teachers and those employees operating behind the scenes. “We have at least 723 people that are making over a $100,000 dollars each,” she said, later alluding to the school district’s low academic ranking in Maryland. “.”

“Someone is not being effective or efficient as a manager,” she added.

Then again . Citing budget documents and information she acquired from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Harris decried what she termed a “disparity in spending on administrative salaries versus those of our teachers.”

“Just last week, a speaker stated that 723 staff made more than $100,000 and, of that amount, Dr. Hite reported back that just 51 employees are directly involved in educating our children. I dug down even further,” she said, referring to the county’s Human Resources Operations division, one of four. “We are paying $75,000 to data-entry clerks, $90,000 to a secretary [and] more than $100,000 to several mid-level bureaucrats.”
 
“Meanwhile,” Harris later stated, “my future kindergarten student can only expect one teacher to supervise her class of 30 or more five-year-olds. So where are our priorities?” she said. “Her teacher can only hope to make over $100,000 after acquiring a master’s degree and several years of teaching experience.”

This appears to be true, according to pay tables supplied online by PGCPS. It would take a master’s degree and about 20 years of experience to reach a $100,000 salary. Meantime, an entry-level teacher with a bachelor's degree can expect about a $50,000 salary.

Overall, instructional salaries make up roughly 35 percent of the $1.7 billion budget, while administration and mid-level administration salaries account for 10 percent. Neither of these figures include fringe benefits, which also apply to thousands of others—nurses, bus drivers, custodians—and account for an additional 18 percent of the proposed budget.

Other human resources divisions outlined in budget documents include the Employee and Labor Relations division, which would staff seven employees—five support specialists, a director and secretary — under Hite’s proposal. Together, these seven would net $726,932 in salaries and wages, or $103,847 each when averaged out.

Meanwhile, the Recruiting, Certification and Welcome Center division’s 14 staff members—composed of eight support specialists, a clerk, director and four secretaries—would make a combined $1,108,589 in salaries and wages. That’s an average of $79,185 each. 

picked up where Harris left off.

“It’s of concern to me, as well as my constituents, that we’re having secretaries with no more than a high school diploma making salaries that really are higher than we hire our teachers (for),” Boston said.

“I just want to know that we’re…working on putting some type of process in place that this won’t continue to happen,” she said. “Because it makes us not look, you know, it’s just bad. And then you’re talking about increasing class sizes and cutting teachers.”

The superintendent agreed. “You’re right, Ms. Boston. It makes us look like our priorities are out of whack,” Hite said, suggesting that Boston’s concerns would be a “critical piece” of contract negotiations in the future to better reflect the school system’s priorities.

The Board of Education is scheduled to meet and ratify the budget on Feb. 24. However, officials have indicated that ratification may be pushed back to Saturday. From there, the budget would be forwarded to the county executive and council for further consideration and approval.

For information about upcoming dates and budget information, please visit the PGCPS website.