Thousands of Texas school employees make over $100,000 a year, a Wednesday report revealed.
More than 7,300 public school teachers, administrators, athletic directors, and other salaried workers raked in six-figure salaries during fiscal year 2017 which, combined totaled an almost $1 billion cost to taxpayers, according to OpenTheBooks.com.
Four superintendents earned more than President Trump’s $400,000 salary, which the president pledged to forgo and donate. Idea Public Schools superintendent Thomas Torkelson, Conroe Independent School District (ISD) superintendent Donald Stockton, Carroll ISD superintendent David Faltys, and Cypress-Fairbanks ISD superintendent John Henry earned $450,000, $427,165, $420,192, and $417,103, respectively.
Of the teachers, 407 comprised a little less than six percent of the six-figure school earners, a share matched almost exactly by school business managers and athletic directors, combined. Each group received between $46 and 47 million from taxpayers, total. Texans paid over $192 million to 1,713 principals, on the other hand. (RELATED: California College Republicans Might Have Funding Stripped, Given To Black Student Unions)
OpenTheBooks discovered that superintendents not only received salaries in the several-hundred-thousand-dollar range, but that some of those salaries had increased dramatically over short periods of time. Katy ISD superintendent Lance Hindt’s paycheck soared from $230,000 in 2015 to $343,006 in 2017. Hindt will resign in January 2019 after allegations of plagiarism and bullying dating three decades back. He will receive a $750,000 severance.
Teachers nationally earned $58,064 on average, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Principals made a median 2017 salary of $94,390, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Superintendents reaped an average of $97,640 in 2017.
Two dozen Texas superintendents accepted $6 million in severance pay over 15 months, according to The Texas Monitor.
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