School Official in Dispute With State on Severance

[flashl]

AFTER 38 ½ years of service, Barbara Trzeszkowski reported for her last day of work on Monday at the Keansburg Board of Education. If her contract with the district withstands a number of legal and governmental challenges, the superintendent will ease into retirement with a $740,876 severance package that the state’s top education official compared to the “golden parachute” awarded to retiring Fortune 500 executives.

In the next few weeks, Ms. Trzeszkowski, 60, was scheduled to receive $14,449 for unused vacation days, the first third of the $170,137 she had amassed in unused sick days, and the first 20 percent of $556,290 in severance pay. This was in addition to the $103,889 annual pension she was to collect from the district for the rest of her life.

Ms. Trzeszkowski’s total package, negotiated with the district school board in 2004, has not only brought a court challenge by the State Department of Education, but it has also captured the attention of members of the Legislature, as well as the public, who have pointed out that Keansburg is an Abbott district, one of 31 so-called disadvantaged districts largely financed by the state. Last year the Keansburg district received $31 million in state aid, or 77 percent of its total budget.

After details of Ms. Trzeszkowski’s last contract were disclosed — it gave her six-hour workdays in the summer and a list of holidays that included the Tuesday after Easter, in addition to the retirement package — state leaders issued a call for a review of all superintendent contracts, which are negotiated at the local level.

“For a school board to so outrageously enrich a former superintendent through this type of ‘golden parachute’ at the expense of the children of Keansburg and the state taxpayers is not only contrary to public policy and unconscionable, but it violates the fiduciary duty and loyalty that the board owes to the public,” read a portion of a lawsuit filed on May 30 by the attorney general’s office on behalf of the state education commissioner, Lucille E. Davy.

NY Times

Truly, no news here. CEO-Superintendents been the trend for years in tandem with school consolidation and other corporate-like 'cost-saving' measures. Its as if no one noticed that funds once used for daily operations in schools were disappearing as administration costs, administrative payrolls, were going up.

Over the years, as the CEO-Superintendent salaries increased, there were less funds available for copy paper, other school supplies, custodian services, and even toilet paper.

Remember when teachers were using their salaries to buy school supplies from speciality stores similar to Office Depot? Now, parents and communities buy the copy paper and classroom supplies as CEO-Superintendents get golden parachutes.

[Dr. Strange]

1. The state was providing 77% of the budget?

Time for some serious review here!