Cheers, and pay raises all around
By By Buddy Bynum / editor
Feb. 16, 2003
When it comes to the budget, the folks in charge of our state seem to have landed on a honey pot of an idea designed to make this election year even sweeter.
Despite all of the hand-wringing about tight budgets, a declining economy and failure to meet revenue projections, a fortunate few are taking a long, satisfying dip in a honey of a money bath. They must know something we don't.
The Senate action to boost the salaries of most statewide elected officials, as well as judges and district attorneys, by 10 percent is a good example. Tell me again, that money is coming from … where?
And then there's the startling pay increases granted at the upper ranks of education administration in Mississippi:
The commissioner of higher education's job, which paid $160,000 a year on Dec. 31, 2002, went up to $205,000 on Jan. 1 and is scheduled to go up again to $260,000 in mid-April. That's a 62.5 percent increase not based on any individual's performance. The new education chief, Delta State University president David Potter, doesn't even come on board until April.
When he gets to his new office, the honey pot will be waiting for him, courtesy of the State College Board.
The salary for state Superintendent of Education Henry Johnson went from $144,000 to $184,500 on Jan. 1. It will increase to $234,000 in April. State law says the state superintendent of education will be paid 90 percent of what the commissioner of higher education is paid. He'll benefit from the honey pot, too.
Two top-level Department of Education officials saw their salaries jump from $119,500 to $139,500 on Jan. 1. The raises for state Deputy Superintendent John Jordan and Director of Accountability Judy Rhodes were approved by the state Board of Education.
And, not to be left with an empty honey pot, the salary for Wayne Stonecypher, executive director of the state Board for Community and Junior Colleges, went from $120,000 to $140,000 on Jan. 1. The raise was approved by the community and junior college board.
And we thought
the state was broke
One House committee chairman says there was no excuse for Mississippi education executives to get hefty new paychecks while other state workers receive modest raises of as little as $600 and the state struggles with a weak budget.
Fees and Salaries Chairman John Reeves, R-Jackson, said some of those educators getting tens of thousands of dollars in raises are the same ones complaining that public schools, community colleges and universities are suffering from anemic funding.
We're broke. We don't have any money,'' Reeves said. And the Education Department is the main agency coming in here telling us we don't have any money.''
The House adopted an amendment to roll back the increases and tighten the rules on how executive boards can approve pay raises, but there is a constitutional question over whether legislators have the authority to do that.
Johnson told The Associated Press that his salary increased automatically because of the raise given to the IHL chief. He said the state Board of Education added $20,000 to the deputy superintendent's position to make the job attractive to Jordan, who had been superintendent of Oxford schools. The director of accountability receives the same pay as the deputy state superintendent, Johnson said.
Within the law
The state board acted to get the very best people that it could get, and I think that's appropriate,'' Johnson said. And they acted within the law and they acted ethically.''
Pam Smith, the Institutions of Higher Learning's assistant commissioner for public affairs, said the College Board set a competitive salary for the university system's top job to attract a qualified leader.
Education is expensive and what our Legislature and board have been about the business of doing is keeping high quality, competent people here in Mississippi,'' Smith said. That's all our board is trying to do is have the best leadership possible, and they certainly would like to expand it to the faculty ranks and the staff ranks but that's just not possible.''
Not possible? Guess not, with so much of the money we don't have going to the top executives.
Reeves said some education executives might deserve healthy pay raises in robust economic times.
Far too many people in the upper echelons of state education are clueless as to why they're losing credibility with the masses, and money alone whether absent or abundant will not fix the problem. There's an attitudinal fly in the honey pot and it's slowly nibbling away at common sense.
