Publicize teacher salaries and benefits

To the Editor:

Residents should be properly informed prior to the May 17 school budget vote, but school officials have been keeping them in the dark. School district newsletters contain no information about teachers’ or administrators’ salaries and raises, or the cost of their health benefits. These items make up over 85 percent of the school budget, but few taxpayers ever see any of their data.

Over half of the teachers on Long Island are paid more than $100,000 a year, while nearly all school administrators earn more than New York State Supreme Court justices whose salaries are $136,700 a year. All school superintendents on the Island have higher salaries than Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The Malverne school superintendent has a $316,245 school pension, so with his current pay his total public compensation is $550,335, which is more than President Obama’s salary.

There are 52 teachers in Malverne who earn over $110,000; 21 teachers are paid $119,916.

According to a newspaper article, the president of the West Hempstead Teachers Union said, “We don’t get much money.” The salary of the teachers’ union president is $105,563 for a 10-month school year plus another 25 percent in benefits. The officers of the West Hempstead teachers’ union each earn over $100,000. How do teachers define “much money”?

One West Hempstead teacher with a base salary of $107,615 coaches three sports and supervises kids in the cafeteria, giving him an extra $12,518 for coaching and boosting his paycheck to $123,299. Why not establish a requirement that teachers who are paid more than $100,000 must participate in extracurricular activities without extra pay?

The Sewanhaka Central School District superintendent, with a salary of $281,190 plus $61,311 in benefits, has a staff that includes 28 chairpersons (top pay $136,976) and a chief information officer who is paid $141,500 a year. That’s probably more than Newsday pays its top editors.

Our economy is struggling and the elderly on Social Security haven’t had an increase in benefits for two years, but that doesn’t deter the Franklin Square elementary school district from paying a kindergarten or first-grade teacher $118,401 a year. In July, these teachers will be given a 3.5 percent pay raise, twice the inflation rate.

The New York State United Teachers union, one of the biggest spenders in Albany, spent $6.4 million last year on lobbying and campaign contributions. This money came from taxpayer-funded salaries and is being used to get more money from taxpayers’ pocketbooks. The New York state teachers union has 500 full-time employees. Everyone in the public school system has someone to represent them except the taxpayers who pay the bills.

Write to your school superintendent and demand that teachers’ and administrators’ salaries and benefits be posted on the school’s website and be included in the budget newsletter. And tell them to stop keeping taxpayers in the dark.

George Rand
Franklin Square

The salary data above is based on material provided by the school districts in response to Freedom of Information Law Requests.