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SCHOOL CHIEFS TOP PUBLIC PAY IN AREA

November 15, 2009 1:47 am

The job of school superintendent is, on average, the highest-paid local government position in the Fredericksburg region, according to an analysis by The Free Lance-Star of top local government salaries.

The average superintendent's salary in our area is $155,005, including benefits. The next-highest-paying local government job is that of county administrators and city managers, who make, on average, $140,360 a year in salary and benefits.

By far the highest-paid local government official in the region is Spotsylvania County School Superintendent Jerry Hill, who was hired in 2001. Hill's $175,500 annual salary is supplemented by $46,500 in deferred compensation and a $12,000 car allowance. That brings his full compensation to $234,000.

The highest salary for a local county administrator is that of Stafford County Administrator Anthony Romanello, whose compensation package totals $183,056, including $16,500 in deferred compensation.

The Free Lance-Star filed Freedom of Information requests earlier this year for the name, position and salary of every local government and school employee in our area making $100,000 or more. All salaries include fringe benefits such as annuities and car allowances.

The area includes Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, Stafford, King George, Caroline, Westmoreland, Orange, Culpeper, Fauquier and Louisa counties.

In those localities and their school systems, 233 employees make $100,000 or more a year.

ELECTED BOARDS SET PAY

County administrators, city managers and school superintendents are all hired directly by elected boards of supervisors, city councils and school boards.

The salaries of these top government officials are the product of negotiations between these elected boards and their desired job candidates.

School boards in Spotsylvania and Stafford counties will both begin superintendent searches within the next year.

The Spotsylvania County and Fredericksburg governments recently promoted from within to fill their top spots.

The second-highest-paid local government official in the area is Fredericksburg School Superintendent David Melton, who manages the area's second-smallest school district after Colonial Beach.

Melton, hired last year, makes a base salary of $169,520. His $21,500 annuity and other benefits bring his total annual compensation to $197,620.

That's more than Stafford School Superintendent David Sawyer's $184,722 package, even though Sawyer's school district has nearly 10 times as many students as Melton's. Sawyer was hired in early 2007.

Fredericksburg School Board member Pat Green, who has been involved in three city superintendent searches, said it's not easy to find someone who is qualified to be a superintendent in Virginia and who also fits well with Fredericksburg.

"He's worth more to us" than his salary, Green said. "He's academically minded, he's done so much for our faculty and staff, he keeps us informed of everything that goes on, he's working on new programs with kids."

She also said that running a small school system poses particular challenges. Green suggested that Fredericksburg residents look to their schools to do more than those in other communities because they are so small.

"Our superintendent has to be more open to the community because of our ratio of children to the population," she said.

Fredericksburg Mayor Tom Tomzak, however, thinks superintendent contracts don't get as much public scrutiny as city manager contracts.

Tomzak said the discrepancy in pay between the two posts in Fredericksburg reflects "a flaw in the system."

Tomzak recently oversaw the council's negotiations of City Manager Beverly Cameron's employment contract. Cameron gets a base salary of $155,000, plus an annual car allowance of $8,400. He receives no deferred compensation.

"I was somewhat criticized about the package [Cameron] received," he said. "Nobody brought up the superintendent's salary at all."

A TOUGHER JOB?

Frank Barham, director of the Virginia School Boards Association, said the educational requirements the state sets for superintendents, the large staffs they must manage and the wide variety of responsibilities they hold are what set their jobs--and, in turn, their pay--apart.

"The responsibilities are like apples and oranges," he said of the comparison between the superintendents' jobs and the county administrators'.

Virginia Association of Counties Executive Director James Campbell said the higher superintendent salaries are nothing new, but he wasn't aware of any particular reason for the discrepancy in pay.

"Maybe they're just better negotiators," he said.

Michelle Frisby, public information director for the International City/County Management Association, said she wasn't sure what accounts for the pay difference, and argued that a county administrator or city manager's job is just as demanding as, if not more demanding than, a superintendent's.

"This person is responsible for the provision of essential services to all sectors of the population, not to a fixed number of students. It's comparable, in my opinion, to running a small, or maybe a large, private-sector corporation, but with a different edge."

What put the superintendents over the top in most cases are the benefits packages included in their contracts.

Eight of the 11 superintendents in our area receive some form of deferred compensation--a contribution to an annuity or other tax-sheltered account--as part of their employment agreements.

Six receive more than $10,000 a year in deferred compensation.

Deferred compensation is less common among county administrators and town and city managers. Of the 13 in our region, only three receive this benefit.

PUBLIC SALARIES LOWER

The highest local superintendent salary is still less than that of Fredericksburg Academy Headmaster Robert Graves. Graves made $263,003 in salary and benefits last year as head of the private school, according to the school's 2008 tax filing.

University of Mary Washington President Judy Hample's 2009 salary is $330,000, which does not include the $25,000 Hample receives annually in deferred compensation.

Public executives' salaries tend to be lower than those of private-sector executives.

Union Bankshares Corp. chief executive officer G. William Beale's 2008 pay was $372,000, and StellarOne Corp. CEO O.R. Barham Jr.'s 2008 pay was $416,000, according to information on Yahoo! Finance confirmed by both companies.

MediCorp CEO Fred Rankin made $674,840 in salary and benefits in 2007, according to the company's most recent tax filing. MediCorp spokeswoman Kathleen Allenbaugh said Rankin's salary has been adjusted since then by the private nonprofit corporation's volunteer board of directors, but she would not release the new salary.

She noted that MediCorp's salaries must stay competitive with those of similar positions in health care systems in similar-size markets. MediCorp is the parent company of Mary Washington Hospital, Stafford Hospital Center and a host of other health services in the area.

Frisby said public executives find motivation in solving problems in their communities.

"They want to make a difference. They are truly dedicated to public service," she said. "Obviously, it's not about the money."

Emily Battle: 540/374-5413
Email: ebattle@freelancestar.com