Gap between Evansville Vanderburgh school superintendent and teacher salaries reveals stark differences, concerns for some

When the Governor’s Council visited Evansville a few months ago, Mousa overheard other teachers buzzing about the gap between Smith’s and other EVSC administrators' salaries and their own. The sheer depth of the chasm startled her.

“That (superintendent) position does have more requirements and responsibilities than the average teacher might not have to deal with," she said. "I’m not going to bang the drum and say we should make the same amount of money — but was there a little shock there."

Smith knows people are talking about the pay gap. And he said he gets it — but EVSC is doing all it can for teachers with the dollars it has, he said.

"I understand the frustration. My salary is, I think, four times what the average teacher salary is. If you look at a CEO, that probably is on the very, very low end of the spectrum," Smith said. "At one point in time, I was a beginning teacher with us also — and I, in addition to teaching, I gave private lessons. I did gigs. I also cut yards.

"Now I have, I think, five degrees later and a couple of certifications, so I’m still paying on my doctorates degree. But I understand the frustration."

Who's to blame?

Smith pointed a finger of responsibility — but not at EVSC.

The state — the school corporation's primary funding source — must devote a greater percentage of its annual budget to public education, he declared.

Smith's voice rose as he spoke, spitting out words with passion and urgency. He is as aggrieved by low teacher pay as anyone, he said.

"I’ve got teachers that are on food stamps!" Smith said. "That is so frustrating, it’s almost hurtful.

"If you have a teacher that is a single breadwinner for the family and have a couple kids, and they’re at the beginning of their career, that’s wrong," he said, hammering home the final word for emphasis. "And the fact that the state acknowledges that public education should be a community asset — and they need to fund it that way."

It's easy to overlap calendar year numbers with fiscal year and school contract year numbers in the nearly indecipherable maze that is education funding in Indiana — and don't forget the state's biennial budget, meaning that each budget includes appropriations for two fiscal years. Also, EVSC has a particular fund within its budget from which most teachers are paid.

But it is at least possible to glean some relatable numbers to find out how much money is involved.

EVSC reports a 2019 total approved budget of $245.6 million.

Gateway for Local Government reports EVSC spent $76.2 million on "salary costs for all full-time teachers 2018-2019," with another $4.6 million in federal grants paying for teacher salaries. EVSC spokesman Jason Woebkenberg said neither figure includes benefits, which he estimated cost tens of millions more.

Sweetening the pot

As befitting EVSC's highest-ranking full-time employee, Smith's pay is the highest in the school corporation. So are his pay increases.

It starts with one addition and one subtraction the School Board made to sweeten the pot for Smith when it gave him a five-year contract extension in 2017.

A provision allowing Smith to be paid "for no more than 10 unused vacation days per year" was altered to remove that limitation.

Another provision entitling him "to all benefits applicable" to administrative employees was changed to add the words, "and wage increases."

Past pay raises also figure into the equation.

Using a collectively bargained compensation model based on employee evaluations, EVSC gave teachers a range of pay increases from 2014-15 through 2018-19. Administrators got the same 2 percent raises as teachers at the top of the pay scale.

Smith was already receiving a benefit he had been granted in his 2014 three-year contract renewal — 3 percent increases to both his base salary and deferred compensation if the School Board rated him "highly effective" or "effective" in his annual evaluation. He has received the designation every year.

After the School Board amended his contract in 2017 to make sure he got the same pay hikes other administrators were getting, he got those increases too.

Thus Smith's combined pay hikes in school years 2017-18 and 2018-19 included both his contractual 3 percent increases for effectiveness and the raises other administrators got. He has declined potential increases to his salary and deferred compensation in 2019-20, calling it a gesture of solidarity with employees in anticipation of an increase in state funding that he says won't keep pace with inflation.

"If I can't do that for them I'm not going to take it myself, even though my contract calls for it," Smith said.

Put it all together, and Smith's total compensation increased by 34 percent in the five-year period encompassing 2014 to 2018 — from $191,677 to $256,974. In that same period, Gateway shows the average annual full-time teacher salary stayed virtually the same — from $50,116 to $50,347, a change of less than a half percent.

Smith's compensation is determined by members of the EVSC School Board. Teacher pay is collectively bargained with the Evansville Teachers Association.

State education funding is a volatile, high-stakes game

Traditionally, school corporations serving higher-poverty student populations have received more state money than other corporations to offset the added expense of educating students who have more complex educational needs. But legislative changes, a brighter economy and large drops in at-risk student counts have begun to scramble that formula in the direction of more equal funding for all districts.

Districts with more of the latter funding — those with higher concentrations of poor students — have typically received more dollars per student than districts serving more affluent populations. Other factors include location, complexity of educating diverse school populations and a corporation's growth.

Thus a Courier & Press analysis of 2018 state education funding data shows Indianapolis Public Schools, which serves a large population of at-risk students, receiving $9,041 per student compared to affluent Hamilton Southeastern's $6,048. EVSC's number: $6,733 per student.

The per-pupil division of state funds among school corporations is a volatile, high-stakes game fraught with intrigue and potential for resentment.

"In some places it appears cut-and-dried, and then in other corporations you can wonder why in the world aren't we getting more money because of our numbers?" said Michael Adamson, director of board services for the Indiana School Boards Association. "It really becomes a huge task to try and make sure that the formula is equitable."

Adamson, who served for 20 years as a school board member in Hendricks County, is co-author of the 2017 book, "Building Great School Board — Superintendent Teams: A Systematic Approach to Balancing Roles and Responsibilities." Serving with the association for 13 years, he trains school boards all over the state on their responsibilities. He has his finger on the education establishment's pulse.

"Sometimes we don’t see a rhyme or reason for the reason why one school corporation gets a tremendous amount of additional money per student for education than do the people who live right next door to them," Adamson said.

'A crisis point'

Keith Gambill, president of the Indiana State Teachers Association, said Indiana is losing teachers and education staff at an alarming rate. Gambill said educators were told that one of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s goals was to bring up Indiana salaries to be competitive with the region.

“In order to do that, that means that the average teacher salary in Indiana would have to be around $60,000 to be considered competitive,” Gambill said. “The current average is hovering between $50,000 to $51,000. We have spent so many years as a state with the (large) number of cuts in public education.

"Indiana is at a crisis point in their need for teachers and to keep them in the classroom."

Gayle Mooney, a sixth-grade teacher at Scott Elementary School, said the pay gap between teachers and other professions is worrisome.

“The teaching profession is in crisis,” said Mooney, a veteran of 25 years in the profession. "Great people leave because they can’t take it anymore.

"It’s not only the pay. It’s also (having) respect for what (teachers) do, recognition for what they do and being asked, 'What can we do to help you do your job better?’ My son has an associate's degree from Ivy Tech, and he’s in his 20s. He makes more than what a 16- or 17-year teacher would make."

EVSC chief points finger at inflation

Like many other superintendents, EVSC's Smith argues that his corporation could pay full-time teachers more if the money it gets from the state were adjusted for inflation.

"Frankly, if you take away my superintendent’s salary – take it totally away – then that means that our employees would see less than $2 on their paychecks. So obviously, that is not the issue," Smith said.

"To me, the issue is a lack of funding to keep pace with inflation."

EVSC produced a year-by-year list of the school corporation's total state funding and what that funding would have been had it only been adjusted for inflation. From 2009 through last year, EVSC says, it would have received an additional $87.8 million.

If this keeps up for the next two years, Smith declared, the number of lost dollars will rise to $100 million.

But the EVSC chief has a litany of other complaints about the way state money flows to his corporation and the expectations placed upon it. Constraints that complicate giving pay raises to teachers when they earn masters degrees. Unfunded mandates — requirements of state or federal law that don't come with money to carry them out — to the tune of $11 million.

"And then there’s another $10 million of what I would call community expectations – for instance, we have nurses in every single one of our buildings. We have security systems, we have social workers," Smith said.

Smith estimated those and the unfunded mandates add up to more than $21 million.

"That would be enough to give each of our teachers more than a $10,000 raise. And that’d be a good start, but that’s not where we should stop," he said.

Top-heavy?

Jean Baresic is buying none of this.

Baresic, an outspoken critic of Smith's, served as EVSC's assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for about a decade until 2008 — when, she said, she chose to go back into the classroom. She said she was Smith's direct supervisor when he was principal at Evans Middle School.

She also said Smith presides over a bloated and overpaid school system bureaucracy that doesn't value teachers.

Ten administrators working under Smith received more than $100,000 annually in 2012, his first full year on the job. That number stood at 22 last year, prompting complaints by Baresic and others that Smith's administration is top-heavy.

Enrollment at EVSC is down, after all — from 23,440 in 2011, Smith's first year as superintendent, to 22,601 this year.

Smith has a chief of staff who made almost $133,000 last year. He has two associate superintendents and a deputy superintendent who made similar amounts and a director of research for school improvement who made more than $121,000. There's an assistant superintendent at $110,000-plus and another who clocked in at a few thousand dollars less. A director of neuroeducation was paid more than $100,000.

"The salaries that are being paid (at EVSC administrative offices) downtown to what I think are the excess number of superintendents — some of that money could be transferred back to teachers," Baresic said.

"I fully realize it would not make a huge dent in teacher salaries, but it would go a long way toward demonstrating that the downtown administration is truly beginning to value teachers."

Smith rejects such criticism out of hand.

"We actually have less (six-figure administrators) than peer groups do," he said. "And we actually have less than a neighboring school district, so obviously that’s not the issue."

EVSC spokesman Woebkenberg also pointed at the unnamed nearby school corporation.

"A regional comparison shows a neighboring school district has 30 administrators earning over $100,000 per year, compared to 23 (including Smith) in the EVSC, even though this district is less than half the size of EVSC," he said in an email.

Woebkenberg and Smith wouldn't identify the district, but Gateway shows Warrick County School Corporation reported 30 administrators received six-figure compensation last year. Warrick's student enrollment is 10,242 to EVSC's 22,601.

Warrick also paid a minimum teacher salary of $38,760, a $57,571 average and $77,061 maximum in 2018-19 — all higher than EVSC's numbers.

"It’s far too simplistic if anyone were to suggest that all you have to do is move money around to free up a few dollars to pay employees more. It’s much deeper than that," Woebkenberg said. "It’s like Dr. Smith said — we’ve got to get additional funding to make that possible."

It's true the administrative growth is not unusual.

With almost exactly 1,000 students fewer than EVSC, Hamilton Southeastern — widely regarded as one of the best school corporations in the state — has seen similar growth. Hamilton Southeastern had 10 building and district administrators under the superintendent who were making more than $100,000 in 2012 and 17 last year.

Indianapolis Public Schools reported 33 six-figure administrators under the superintendent in 2012 and 46 in 2018.

Breaking it down

So, you want to know the details of what went into the EVSC superintendent's 2018 compensation of $256,974. Good luck. The Courier & Press had to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out.

"Would not be appropriate to discuss anything related to any employee's salary or benefits (including the superintendent, administrators, teachers, custodians or any others) at this time as we are currently in the process of negotiating with our employees," Woebkenberg texted the newspaper in response to questions sent Sept. 18.

Woebkenberg promised EVSC would answer questions — including one asking how to break down the separate components of Smith's $256,974 — after the negotiations were completed.

Smith's contract, which by law must be posted on EVSC's website, also offers no answers. The version available is a three-year contract renewal passed by the School Board in December 2014. It says Smith's annual base salary is $175,000 with deferred compensation of $25,000 — an annuity — but those figures are five years old. The 2017 contract amendments are included, but they don't give a current salary figure.

Gateway for Local Government includes no details about Smith's compensation. Governmental units just give a number, Gateway said. Discrepancies might be caught in an audit, but otherwise, Gateway relies on state and local agencies to be truthful.

The Courier & Press delivered a formal Freedom of Information Act request to Woebkenberg, after which he provided a breakdown of Smith's 2018 compensation. But the EVSC spokesman added it up to $244,253, not $256,974.

Woebkenberg disclosed that:

• Smith's base salary has grown to $202,914.
• The superintendent's deferred compensation is up to $28,139.
• Add in $12,000 from an automobile allowance and a cell phone stipend of $1,200, and you get to $244,253.
• The extra nearly $13,000 that got Smith to $256,974? That was Smith taking a check for unused vacation days, Woebkenberg said.

"Frequently (Smith) feels like he’s not able to step away just because of the demands of the job and what needs to be taken care of," said the EVSC spokesman, who added that Smith gets four weeks of vacation annually. "He was not able to take vacation days and worked the majority of those days, and so the (school) board paid him for those days."

No, teachers don’t get paid for vacation days not worked. Working on 183-day contracts, they have "sick" days and "personal" days — but not vacation days. Those are only for 52-week employees.

Some of Smith's compensation isn't visible to the naked eye.

The extra $28,139 the superintendent got in deferred compensation last year has value to him beyond pumping up his paycheck.

EVSC reports the money as part of Smith's salary to the Indiana State Teachers Retirement Fund, which at retirement will average the five highest years of compensation to calculate monthly pension payouts.

The practice is legal and within the retirement fund's guidelines.

Cash equal to the cost of school-district paid health insurance also can be used to boost pension payouts, but Smith receives no pay for that. His wife — a longtime teacher at EVSC — carries the insurance for the couple.

A closer look: Ranking says EVSC isn't close to the best school district

No rules for paying superintendents

There are no rules for determining what a public school superintendent in Indiana will make. There's no slotting system dictating that the largest school corporations, or those with the highest grades and rankings, will pay the most.

Size matters, but so do a lot of other things. Location matters. The amount of money available matters. What a superintendent makes is entirely up to local school boards, their perceptions of superintendents and the relevant economic and competitive marketplaces, Michael Adamson said.

Paul Kaiser, superintendent at tiny Beech Grove City Schools in Marion County, brought in just a few thousand dollars less than Smith last year — and that corporation has 3,016 students, little more than one-seventh of EVSC's enrollment.

The highly regarded West Lafayette Community School Corporation, ranked best in the state by academic ranking services, gave Superintendent Rocky Killion just $160,000 in total compensation last year. But West Lafayette has fewer students — just 2,411 — than even Beech Grove.

Killion had just four people under him making more than $100,000 last year, and all of them were working in schools as principals or associate principals. There were no other superintendents.

"If they had 1,000 or 2,000 more kids going to school there, you might see a difference," Adamson said. "Simply because the level of complexity would increase, numbers of staff people, the overall operation of the corporation would require more time, greater skill set."

And what of Lawrence Township Schools in northeast Marion County, where Superintendent Shawn Smith got paid more than any other superintendent in the state with a reported total compensation of $293,647? Gateway shows no fewer than 57 other building and district administrators at Lawrence Township got six-figure compensation in 2018, with five topping $180,000.

Lawrence Township paid a minimum teacher salary of $42,622 with a maximum of $81,286 in 2018-19. That compares to $38,000 and $70,000 for EVSC.

Adamson said Lawrence Township and other school districts in and around growth and expansion from Indianapolis are large and longstanding organizations serving a variety of students and areas. Four of the six school districts reporting higher compensation to superintendents than what Smith got are located in Marion County.

Adamson pointed to Lawrence Township's diverse student body. And it is diverse. Indiana Department of Education data indicates 45 percent of the corporation's students are black, 25 percent are Hispanic and 7 percent multiracial. Lawrence Township Schools corporation bills itself as "one of the fastest growing school districts in Indiana."

"The complexity of the job in those areas drive a lot of the salary considerations because you want someone that’s equipped to handle that kind of diversity in the community and provide a sound educational program — somebody that’s not going to be willing to just use the position as a stepping stone to move on," Adamson said.

And sometimes it's just as simple as this: Adamson said some school corporations genuinely appreciate the skill set needed to run a large organization and have purposed to compensate their superintendent accordingly.

When they renewed Smith's contract in 2014 and again in 2017, EVSC School Board members spoke of him as a special talent whose services had to be retained lest another school corporation lure him away with big money.

The competitive marketplace for superintendents in Indiana's biggest school systems can't be found in Indiana, Adamson said. There are only about as many school systems that size as you can count on one hand.

"I recommend that when school boards go to get competitive wage information, they go through adjoining states because that’s where your competition would come from. The Illinoises, the Michigans, to some extent the Ohios," Adamson said.

No correlation between pay and performance, either

A school district may pay its superintendent more than most because it values public education and wants the best people possible, or because the district's circumstances make the job especially challenging. It may pay more because it's harder to attract good people to the area — or because the area is affluent and it costs more to live there.

But high superintendent pay doesn't guarantee high district performance.

Niche's top-ranked school district paid its superintendent less than every one of the other top 10 last year. Two of the six school corporations that paid their superintendents more than Smith ranked even lower than EVSC on the Niche list. Only one of Niche's top 10 "best school districts" paid its superintendent more than Smith.

Lawrence Township Schools — the district with the state's highest-paid superintendent and 57 other administrators making over $100,000 last year — doesn't perform much better than EVSC. Lawrence ranked 11 places above EVSC's 159th position on Niche's list of the Best School Districts in Indiana. Lawrence also got a "C" on the Indiana Department of Education's 2017-18 Report Card — the same as EVSC.

Affluent and 'best': The link

There is one discernible pattern.

Five of Niche's top 10 "best school districts" are located in Hamilton and Hendricks counties, which are among the state's most affluent and fastest-growing places.

With a median household income of more than $90,000 and a poverty rate of 5 percent, Hamilton is Indiana's richest county. The median home value in Hamilton County is $240,000 — $110,000 higher than the state average. Hamilton County school systems in Niche's top 10 include Carmel Clay Schools and Hamilton Southeastern Schools.

Hendricks County placed three school systems in Niche's top 10 — Brownsburg Community School Corporation, Plainfield Community School Corporation and Avon Community School Corporation.

Any teacher will tell you: Schools benefit when parents are actively engaged and invested in their children's education. More than half of all adults in Hamilton County have a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to a 24/7 Wall St. analysis ranking it the 14th-best county in America in which to live.

It may be something as simple as the difference between a sod football field and one that has artificial turf.

"If you go to Carmel, you’re going to see nice buildings. You’re going to see well-managed lawns, where there’s a lot of community pride," Adamson said. "If you’re going to go to a primarily agricultural area, you're going to see the schools that may not have all the bells and whistles, but they’re still providing a good education for the students."

The superintendents on Niche's top 10 list may not correlate with a list of the highest-paid, but that doesn't mean the corporations don't attract talent. Killion, superintendent of top-ranked West Lafayette Community School Corporation, was named Indiana Superintendent of the Year for 2015 by the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents.

Adamson said it's important to remember that superintendents are responsible for curriculum, budget, employee hiring and transportation, among other things. In larger school systems, associate and deputy superintendents handle those day-to-day responsibilities but superintendents ultimately are responsible for everything.

"Everything. Everything," Adamson said. "A superintendent’s job can very easily be a burnout job. People forget that superintendents are the CEOs of local million-dollar corporations — often the largest supplier, the largest food service provider, the largest transportation provider, in their areas. They spend so much time, so much energy, 24/7, 365 days a year.

"I think they’re worth every nickel."

Segann March contributed to this report.