As District 150 continues to struggle with their structural deficit, calls for cuts at the administration building have started coming up again. I thought it might help the discussion to have some hard numbers with which to work. So I requested some information on administrators and consultants from District 150 and would like to share the results with you and ask for your feedback.

Consultants

According to information obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, the district employs just four consultants:

 

Consultant	Per Diem Rate
Dr. Cindy Fischer	$350.00
Dr. Judy Helm	$500.00
Mary Ann Randle	$315.83
Dr. Thom Simpson	$476.44

 

As of February 23, 2009, District 150 had compensated Dr. Fischer $7,525 for 21.5 days and reimbursed her $3,161.92 in expenses. These expenses were not specified in the report. Total paid for September through November 2008 was $10,686.92.

Dr. Judy Helm, who has her own business called Best Practices, Inc., has been compensated $21,750 for 43.5 days between July 2008 and January 2009, and has been reimbursed $167.91 for expenses. Total compensation since July 2008 is $21,917.91.

Mary Ann Randle’s salary is paid for by two grants: “PAS” and “Prevention Initiative.” No further information was given regarding either grant. Since July 2008, she has been paid $17,054.95 for 54 days and has been reimbursed $1,743 in expenses. Total compensation since July 2008 is $18,797.95.

Dr. Thom Simpson, whose job is listed on the district’s website as “Strategic Planning,” has his compensation split up into a base per diem rate of $455.90 and a 4.5% ($20.54/day) contribution to his Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (non-certified state pension program). Since July 2008, he has been compensated $63,128.30 for 132.5 days, plus $2,000 for a “mentor stipend.”

That’s it for consultants. If they were to all be eliminated, it would come to $116,531.08 in cost between July 2008 and the present, which covers about 7 months. To extrapolate this out to an annual figure, it comes out to roughly $200,000.

Administration

The list of administration staff includes 123 employees at a total payroll of $9,312,462.41. This includes 35 principals, 13 assistant principals, and 7 deans.

Read the whole report (PDF file)

I found it interesting that school principals and assistant principals are some of the highest-paid administrators in District 150. Of the 23 employees making over $100,000 per year, 16 are principals or assistant principals. Other administrators making six figures are:

• Superintendent Ken Hinton ($202,389.98)
• Assistant Superintendent Cheryl Sanfilip ($135,927)
• Controller/Treasurer Guy Cahill ($130,889.98) — has since left D150, of course; this information was current as of February 23
• Associate Superintendent Herschel Hannah ($117,183)
• Human Resources director Tom Broderick ($110,472.24)
• Academic Officer Mary Davis ($110,000.08)
• Research/Testing/Assessment director Bryan Chumbley ($100,092)
• “Teaching and Learning” director Susan Grzanich ($100,000)

As I’ve pointed out before, District 150 used to have just one superintendent, and that was when enrollment was larger. It’s hard for me to understand why we need to pay three superintendents a combined total of $455,499.98 — nearly half a million dollars! — to do the same job now that enrollment is so low we’re closing schools right and left. In fairness, this amount has gone down since Dr. Fischer left (and was subsequently rehired as a consultant); we used to have four superintendents. Still, I don’t see the need to wait for all these positions to be eliminated through attrition.

Also, in looking up Susan Grzanich’s responsibilities (I was curious what the “Teaching and Learning” program was all about), I found my way to this web page, which shows that this program has a staff of eight people, only three of whom show up on the list of administrators I received (Grzanich of course, plus Kathy Burke [$88,755.83] and Trish Guinee [$93,557.07]). The other five people are all listed as having offices in the administration building, but are apparently not considered “administration,” despite titles such as “benchmark specialist” and “instructional restructuring advisor.” It makes you wonder just how many non-administrators are employed at District 150.

I would be interested in my readers’ thoughts on this information. My overall thought is this: there is some fat that can be trimmed from the administration side of the district’s operations. I don’t mean that to sound harsh; I honestly don’t want to see anyone lose their job, especially given the current economic downturn. But the sad fact is that jobs are going to be lost. The district is already talking about closing a high school, some elementary schools, and laying off no small number of teachers.

Given that fact, it’s hard to understand why we would nevertheless need to maintain the same number of highly-paid administrators to oversee that shrinking student and teacher base. I’m sure all these jobs have value, but cost-cutting/layoffs should start in the places that have the least student impact. I would suggest that assistant/associate superintendents arguably have the absolute least student impact.