This is just obscene:
Some are questioning why retired Wayne Township Schools Superintendent Terry Thompson is taking with him a payout of more than $500,000.
According to a copy of Thompson's contract, he was paid a severance of more than $283,902 -- the same amount as his 2010-11 salary -- when he retired in December after 15 years with the district, 6News' Kara Kenney reported.
Thompson
also received $15,000 for "retirement planning" and will stay with the district for 150 work days as a "superintendent emeritus," for which he will earn $1,351.91 a day for more than seven months, the contract states.
"Superintendent emeritus" -- nice work, if you can get it.
Comments
Tip of the iceberg.
Sounds like the same concept - although the $$$$ amounts are so much higher - given CEOs and other executives of firms and corporations. We talk about running government like a business until the "running it like a business" includes payouts we blanch at. Oh yeah, forgot, school superintendents, like other public servants, don't do this for the money, they do it for the love of it.
AJ
Andrew, there's an enormous difference (actually no valid comparison) between CEO's of PRIVATE firms paid with private dollars that are generated by private profits from goods and services sold as opposed to public employees whose salaries are literally sucked from the pockets of taxpayers.
Apples and oranges.
Doesn't the adage, you get what you pay for, apply here? You want real life, corporate experience, with the commensurate pay it attracts in real life, yet you believe you are going to get it by paying 13 cents on the dollar? A superintendent of a school district, with 15,000 students, and with an annual budget of more than $162 million, and you want to pay him what you or I earn? Really?
AJ
But in this case, we're paying him $500,000 to walk out the door. That's stupid in the public or private sector either one, but I have more to say about it when it's my money paying him.
Now we can see why education is costing so much.... that 500k could be used to hire 9-10 new teachers with salary/benefit costs, instead it's used to say, "Good Job!!" Gross misuse of YOUR tax dollars
One years pay as severance. He's been superintendent 15 years. What should a top executive like this get, two weeks?
Most of the rest is money he is getting paid for continuing to provide a service/working for the school district for 150 days. Got a beef with that?
And why is that stupid in the private sector? Ballplayers agree to contracts with management with last year buyout clauses. The team doesn't want an aging superstar in his last year, so instead of paying him $15 million to play, they pay him $2 million to go bye-bye. The marketplace determines a lot of this, as you well know.
AJ
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if he is also going to receive a pension from the Indiana State Teachers Retirement Fund?
I don't know about that, but new calculations put his retirement payout so far at $1 million rather than the $500,000 mentioned in the first reports. The school board really wasn't paying attention, and its members are now in hiding and ducking questions.
John Doe's calculation is right on- you could hire about 10 teachers for one year at that amount- and I am not being snarky.
I heard a former FWCS board member on the radio recently- he said that FWCS pays $17k per year per employee for INSURANCE alone (not including the employee portion). So you would have $170k in insurance costs....
Of course, we don't need to reform health care.......
Is FWCS self insured like many companies with 300+ employees? $17K seems a bit high for health insurance, but that number may also include dental and eye as well. If FWCS has a low deductible, I could see this as a valid number. It may also be that the $17K includes the cost of retiree health benefit costs which were never factored into the cost while working. Kevin do you have a link to where you got this value?
In my opinion the deductible should be set at about average amount spent on Healthcare for those up to age 65. Everyone should be responsible for the normal occurences that take place (broken leg, cut, cold, etc.). Insurance is for those high one time bills similar to a house catching fire.
But more important, instead of hiring ten more teachers, why not cut the budget by the amount and reduce property taxes.
This sounds a lot like that small town in CA that paid politicians huge amounts.