Warrenton school leaders freeze superintendent’s salary at $75,700

Published 5:00 pm Sunday, September 22, 2002

Facing waffling state funding predictions, Warrenton School Board has frozen its superintendent’s salary.

The board voted unanimously to freeze Superintendent Craig Brewington’s salary at $75,700.

“He was a real trooper about it, too,” Board member Jim Gannaway said. “I mean, a unanimous vote, and I don’t remember any complaints.”

The board had budgeted to increase Brewington’s salary $1,136 or 1.5 percent. “We’re probably going to be looking at a freeze the next time we negotiate with the unions,” Brewington said. “It’s hard to expect rank-and-file employees to agree if the management doesn’t follow suit.”

At the Sept. 16 special meeting, the board also increased two district office staff salaries after cutting two positions this year. The secretary’s salary will increase from about $33,500 last year to $35,900, and the person who worked as the payroll clerk and earned $39,900 last year was promoted to a deputy clerk, now earning about $48,500, Gannaway said.

“One of our goals is to have some semblance of equity in the pay scale,” Gannaway said. “If our teachers are making in the 75th percentile, we don’t want to have our secretaries making in the 50th percentile … In the past, it doesn’t appear to me that there’s been much attention paid to that.”

The increase amounts to $11,000, which is a 7 percent increase for the secretary and a 21.5 percent increase for the deputy clerk.

Warrenton Education Association President Ken Carrell said the increases seem unequal with teachers who received a 1.5 percent increase this year and will be negotiating again in January.

“The district office is sort of special in that they’ve received higher increases overall,” he said. “We need to start with the school board and administrators and teachers working together as a team. If you’re a team and one person is getting a huge raise and some one is not, it feels like that person is not on the team.”

The salary increases come as the district office cut two positions this year for a savings of $90,000, Brewington said. Along with the increases, the district office staff realigned responsibilities. The secretary, deputy clerk and superintendent work together in bookkeeping, while the deputy clerk takes most of the responsibility, Gannaway said.

“We have been carefully trimming our personnel costs so we don’t have to shorten the school year or lay off any more teachers,” Brewington said.

During the last few years, teachers, custodians and office workers have been laid off, he said. Classified staff members, which include teachers’ aides, office workers, bus drivers and other non-teaching positions, also agreed to a freeze on their base salary, Brewington said. This summer, several teaching positions were shifted to trim the budget.

“It was a major shake-up,” Gannaway said, noting the district office salary increases elicited “lots of heated discussion.”

Board member Linda Dugan voted against the pay increases, but declined to discuss her reasons, most of which were aired in executive session. “I did vote no, but that’s as far as I want to go with that,” she said. “When the board votes to increase the salaries … as a board member I need to support that.”

The vote brings an end to several months of discussion and actions reorganizing the district office as the district faces a budget crunch.

“If we don’t start saving some money, a little here, a little there,” Gannaway said, “you could potentially have to close the school for an extended period of time to the point that it would definitely affect the students.”

Gannaway pointed to employee benefits, schedualed pay increases and the Public Employees Retirement System for using much of the district’s budget.