In light of the $5.00/hr raise being proposed for the "Business Services Manager", we thought we'd review Administration pay progression over the past 5 years. We've subsequently decided that we're in the wrong line of work.
The 6-Figure Salary Club
In the 2002-03 school year, only one administrator (Tim Culver) earned a "6 figure salary". That number climbed to 4 in the 2006-07 year, and then shot to 9 in 2007-08. That's 9 administrators EACH making over $100,000 per year in salary alone! What will that number be in 2008-09??? Giving the Business Services manager a $10,400 annual increase should get that position primed for the 100K club as well.
We looked closely at the salaries of 8 administrators who have been with the District for the past 5 years. Tim Culver's salary increased 18% over those 5 years, but his contract is separate from the other administrators. The salaries for the other 7 administrators ON AVERAGE have increased by 29% over the past 5 years. That represents an average increase---salary alone---of 5.2% per year. We're not even talking the added value of benefits!!! For comparison, the salary for an average state employee, who typically sees raises of 0-3% per year, raised about 13-15% over the same time period.
Increase in administrator pay from the 2002-03 school year to the 2007-08 school year
Culver up 18% Frei up 25% Mikula up 35%
Dawes up 26% Luessman up 32% Klaas up 25%
Ackley up 28%
No wonder why no one has a problem increasing the Business Services Manager's salary by $10,400 for next year. Gotta get the Business Services Manager in to the club!
Dealing with the rising cost of living
We always hear complaints that salaries are not rising as fast as inflation or the cost of living. Well...first of all, the cost of living has certainly not risen at a 5.2% per year pace. Second, all 5.2% raises are not created equally. Let's say groceries cost your family $500 per month. If the cost of groceries increases by 20%, your family grocery budget now costs $600/mo. or an extra $1,200 per year.
The struggling single parent
Let's say you're a single parent earning a decent (but not great) wage of $33,333 per year (or 1/3 of $100K). You are thrilled to have your boss award you a 5% raise. That translates to an addition $1,667 of gross earnings to cover the added $1,200 cost of groceries. Oh...wait...we have to consider taxes. About 1/3 of that raise goes to taxes. That actually leaves our struggling single parent with only a net increase in pocket pay of about $1117, or not enough to even cover the increased cost of groceries.
The well-compensated school administrator
Now let's look at the impact of our $1,200 increased grocery bill on our administrator, earning a nice, fat $100,000 per year. You too are thrilled to have your the school board award you a 5% raise. That translates to an addition $5,000 of gross earnings to cover the added $1,200 cost of groceries. Even after losing 1/3 to taxes, you're still left with a net increase in pocket pay of about $3,300. Not only does that cover the increased cost of groceries, but you can still afford that week-long vacation at a northern Wisconsin resort.
Our school board needs to start considering that giving administrators a smaller percentage increase still leaves them with plenty of money in their pocket to cover cost of living adjustments. In fact, using our examples above, in order to feel the same pain as our struggling single parent, the raise for our $100K administrator would have had to have been only 1.67%
Funny thing about how math works. Our administrator makes 3 times what our struggling single parent does. In order to give them each a raise to cover the cost of groceries, the percentage increase given to the $33,000 worker needs to be THREE TIMES the increase given to our $100K Club administrator! Any of you get a 15% raise this year? That, ladies and gentlemen, is how the rich get richer. In retrospect, it should come as no surprise that the Sun Prairie School District doesn't fare as well as other area districts in WKCE Math scores. If the school board doesn't understand basic math...how will they ever pass it on to students?
The following are graphs of the meteoric salary rise experienced by top administrators over the past 5 years:
Browse the DPI website area that reports school district pay and see for yourself: DPI School Staff and Salary Data Page
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