Why did I vote “No” to the Superintendent’s contract?

These are my opinions only, and not the opinions of the Pendleton County School Board or any other individual board members.

The decisions we make as a board have a ripple effect at the state level.  My first concern is the impact that our decision will have on the state’s teacher retirement fund.  Boosting the superintendent’s pay to maximize monthly pension benefits would be a very nice gesture to our Superintendent.  This gesture, however, comes with a price.  The teacher’s retirement fund is already underfunded.  If all 176 Kentucky school districts did the same gesture, it would certainly accelerate the death (insolvency) of the Kentucky Teacher’s Retirement System Fund. 

In my opinion, our Superintendent is already well compensated.  The total cost of his pay and benefit package of this new contract will make it a “statistical outlier” relative to the Superintendent’s peer group in comparable districts.

My number one priority as a board member is fiscal responsibility while being fair to all employee groups in the district.  An analogy best explains my point here. 

I have three sons.  As a mother, it is extremely important that I treat each of them fairly.  If I didn’t, it would create family conflict and ultimately, they would not trust me.  This would hold true if I were constantly buying things for myself while my boys got nothing.  I think of the school district as a family.  When teachers see the quality of their working conditions eroded (student-teacher ratio, etc.), it leads to a lack of trust.  This is especially true when other members of the family have not learned to get by with less as well.  It also does not set well when a mother is wearing diamonds and a fur coat, while her children go to school in jeans with holes in them and not wearing a coat at all.  It isn’t that I don’t want the “mother” to have nice things; I just want her to balance her needs against the needs of the “family” budget.
 

If you wish to contact me to discuss this or any other issue, please contact me at 859-472-2799.