Report: 12 school superintendents in Indiana make more than $200K a year

(The Center Square) – School administrator salaries in Indiana have risen by almost 17% since 2010, according to a report released last month, and many salaries of school superintendents are now near $250,000 a year, when including bonuses, car stipends and contributions to retirement accounts.

In Bloomington, the Monroe County Community School Corporation just awarded its new superintendent a base salary of $209,500 a year, plus a $750 a month car stipend and about $27,000 a year to go into two different retirement plans, a 403(b) plan and a 457 plan. These are in addition to a contribution to the Indiana Public Retirement System. This means the new superintendent’s salary is the equivalent of about $246,000, not including health care benefits, paid vacation days or the Public Retirement System contribution.

About an hour north in Decatur Township, on the southwest side of Indianapolis, the school board recently awarded its superintendent a base salary of $207,273, plus $50,000 a year in annuities and a vehicle allowance of $12,000 a year.

When the superintendent, Matt Prusiecki, was first hired in 2013, his base salary was $150,000, according to an IndyStar article, meaning that his salary has increased by 38% in just seven years.

His total contracted salary, including base pay, annuities, vehicle allowance and $19,812 for health care insurance premiums, is $289,569.

A report by the governor’s Next Level Teachers Compensation Commission, released in January, found that administrator salaries in Indiana have risen much more rapidly than teacher salaries.

“To achieve competitive teacher pay, Indiana schools will need to prioritize efficiency and ensure teacher salaries grow as quickly as those of other education professionals,” the commissioners wrote.

The report says if administration costs had grown at the same rate as all salary costs, “schools would have saved more than $75 million in 2019 – enough to add over $1,000 in compensation for every teacher.”

Salaries of superintendents are controlled entirely by locally elected school boards.

The state requires school boards hold a public hearing on the superintendent’s proposed contract and salary. But a school board is under no obligation to take public comments into account. It’s unknown how often they do.

A list of superintendent salaries obtained from the State Department of Education shows at least 12 school corporations in the state had superintendents earning a base salary of more than $200,000 a year in the 2019-20 school year.

But the base salary is usually much less than what is actually going into the bank account of a superintendent every year.

In Fort Wayne, the superintendent is earning a base salary this year of $215,000, and also gets a $10,000 a year bonus (as long as he is rated “effective” by the board) and $20,000 a year to go toward annuities. He also was awarded $10,000 in moving expenses and gets $2,000 a year for home Internet access – and is given a “late model” car for his personal and business use. So the $215,000 salary is actually more than $250,000 a year – a large sum for Allen County, where the median home value in 2019 was just $129,300.

The highest-paid superintendent appears to be in Indianapolis, where Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, now in her second year, has a base salary of about $250,000 per year, and a $1,000 a month car stipend in addition. Her contract also allows her to work as a consultant on the side and to earn money for speaking engagements.

Other school corporations paying their superintendents a base salary of more than $200,000 a year include Evansville, Tippecanoe, Greenwood, and several school corporations in Indianapolis: Lawrence Township, Perry Township, Pike Township, Washington Township and Beech Grove.

Several other school corporations pay their superintendents more than $200,000 when including annual bonuses, which are typically more than $10,000.

“It bothers me that we pay a superintendent $200,000, and then we pay for their car?” says Danny Shields, a retired sixth-grade teacher in Bloomington.

Shields served on a roundtable on teacher pay under former Gov. Mitch Daniels. He says he thinks the Indiana General Assembly should put a cap on superintendent salaries, or limit them to no more than 20 percent over the highest-paid teacher in the school corporation.

“That would give administrators a reason to raise teacher salaries, because it’s tied to theirs,” he said.

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