Some Oklahoma School Superintendents' Salaries Rise As School Week Shortens

Tuesday, January 17th 2017, 1:28 pm

By: Dana Hertneky

Schools in crisis are doing anything they can to save money including going to four day school weeks, but News 9 has learned many of the superintendents in those very same districts are getting big raises.

The small district of Atoka has less than a 1,000 students, but according to the Oklahoma Department of Education, in just one year, the salary for the superintendent went up $40,000.

In Glencoe, the superintendent's base salary went up $10,000, his total compensation nearly $17,000.

In Crescent, the superintendent there went from making $101,000 in 2014 to $118,000 a year later.

“This is not a frugal use of money,” said state Sen. Rob Standridge, R-Norman. “I’m a manager, I’m an owner, I would never give myself those types of raises where I couldn’t give my employees those types of raises.”

Michael McClaren is the president of the Oklahoma Association of School Administrators. He’s also the superintendent of Claremore schools and the school's financial officer and HR person. He said in small districts, that's often the case, especially when times get tough.

“Some of those communities are small enough they might have combined administrative services between a superintendent and a principal. So a local board may have made a decision to put a stipend to that,” he said.

For example, when News 9 called the Jennings superintendent in Pawnee who received a $10,000 raise, he told us his base salary remained the same but he took on some extra jobs.

But that's why Standridge said the state needs a full audit.

“We need to know the full picture of where every penny is going,” Standridge said.

McClaren, however, argues those decisions should be left up to the local school boards.

“The board knows the best, they’re the closest one to the actual issues of the community,” McClaren said.