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 Pay
Dirt on Payday
Little-known perks boost some officials' pay - a lot.
by Bob Wheaton and Matt Bach, The Flint Journal, May 2,
2004
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Ask for Grand
Blanc School Superintendent Gary Lipe's base salary and you
won't find out his total pay last year: $218,147.
Lipe's pay increased by $100,000 in six years, thanks in part to
comfortable taxpayer-funded perks.
That makes him the third-highest-paid public official in the
Flint area and by far the highest-paid local superintendent.
His total compensation is one example of how actual income for
many public officials far exceeds their base salaries -- the
figures most often made public to taxpayers. The Flint Journal
analyzed W-2 tax forms, employment contracts and other payroll
records for more than 450 local officials.
Lipe's base salary was $162,067 in 2003, but after tacking on
other cash perks his income was more than the salaries of
superintendents in such wealthy school districts as Birmingham,
Bloomfield Hills and Grosse Pointe.
Some of Lipe's perks: a $10,000 tax-deferred annuity, a $10,000
car allowance that he uses to lease a Buick LeSabre, more than
$5,000 in longevity pay that's paid to more experienced
employees and reimbursement for the $8,506 he paid into Social
Security and Medicare.
A former school board member said school boards pay extra perks
to conceal the true amount of salaries.
"It's a con job," said Keith Rossman, who approved employee
contracts when he was a Clio Board of Education member from
1999-2003. "I don't think we ever gave any of the unions more
than a 2.5 percent raise.
"But we gave longevity to the teachers, we gave this to the
janitors, we gave residency (pay) to the superintendent. All
that kind of stuff, we're not calling them pay raises."
Some argue there's nothing secret about the pay of public
officials.
"It's all done very openly," said Thomas Svitkovich,
superintendent of the Genesee Intermediate School District,
whose $174,479 total pay last year made him the sixth-highest
paid among local officials in The Flint Journal's circulation
area. "All the contracts of the school administrators and
teachers are approved by the board of education at public
meetings. It's also public record."
Lipe didn't respond to numerous interview requests in the past
month seeking comment about his salary.
Based on Lipe's 2003 W-2 form, only two other officials -- both
doctors at Genesee County Community Mental Health -- were paid
more among all of the area's local government and public school
employees.
"It must be nice to be picked as the superintendent in Grand
Blanc. But if he earned it, then he should be paid for it," said
Flint school board member Herbert Cleaves after seeing the
salary list.
W-2 forms include a person's base salary and most other cash
compensation, such as tax-sheltered investments known as
annuities -- given in addition to traditional retirement
benefits -- and unused vacation time exchanged for cash, so they
give a better picture of how much taxpayer money goes to
officials.
Flint School Superintendent Felix H. Chow, the
fourth-highest-paid official, received $178,322 last year -- his
base pay of $142,666, plus about $28,000 in tax-sheltered
annuities and $3,000 for a school-funded Buick LeSabre.
Svitkovich gets $30,750 in annuities and $10,000 for holding
advanced degrees, boosting his base pay of $128,701 to $174,479.
Not reflected in his 2003 earnings is his $8,000 expense account
or the $30,000 2003 GMC Yukon SUV he drives, also bought by
taxpayers.
Other findings of the salary survey:
· Schools top cities: City officials don't make nearly as much
as their counterparts at school districts. The highest paid,
Flint City Administrator Darnell Earley at $95,002, makes less
than all except two of the superintendents.
· Grand Blanc is grand: It pays to be a high-level government or
school employee in Grand Blanc. Besides Lipe, Grand Blanc's John
Johnson was the highest-paid assistant superintendent
($145,808), Michael Newton at the high school was the
highest-paid principal ($115,713), Norm Abdella was the
highest-paid middle school principal ($107,344), and Randall
Byrne was the second-highest-paid city manager ($93,238).
· Size doesn't always matter: Being in the largest community
doesn't necessarily mean you'll make more money. Grand Blanc was
the state's 46th-largest school district two years ago, but Lipe
made $40,000 more than Chow, who leads the state's
fourth-largest district.
Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell makes less ($65,212) than
the sheriffs of much smaller neighboring counties Lapeer (Ron
Kalanquin, $69,457) and Shiawassee (Robert Wilson, $76,996).
Flint Township Police Chief Vane King makes more ($95,768) than
Flint Police Chief Bradford Barksdale ($88,301) despite serving
a community about one-third Flint's size.
How much is too much?
Judith McLaughlin, 53, of Grand Blanc Township called Lipe's pay
"ridiculous."
"That just kind of blows me away," McLaughlin said. "I never
thought that he would be making that much money."
Others residents said they were surprised by some of the
salaries, but some said the high pay is necessary.
"I feel that if they're doing their jobs and if we're going to
attract people who can do the job, we're going to have to pay
good salaries," said Jim Johnson, 83, of Grand Blanc.
Shareka Leslie, a senior at Flint Northwestern Edison High
School, said she wants to become a corrections officer but
thinks she might try education after viewing area
superintendents' salaries. She looked at the figures and
wondered how many school computers or new textbooks that money
could buy.
For the record, Lipe's compensation package could purchase 145
laptop computers at $1,500 each -- or pay the salary and
benefits of about three Grand Blanc teachers.
"I've never in my life seen that many zeros," said Leslie, 18.
"Being a superintendent is a hard job. I understand that. But
the pay is outrageous."
Defending the decision
Grand Blanc school board members said Lipe has been a key to the
district's successes, including some of the best standardized
test scores in the state and rave reviews from Standard &
Poor's, which analyzes school performance for the state.
"I know my thinking ... was that Gary was getting job offers
from other places, and I didn't want to lose him," said Lillian
Mason, who was school board president when Lipe's current
contract was approved.
Lipe began working for the district as a counselor in 1963 and
became superintendent in 1992. His current contract began in the
2000-01 school year and is up for renewal after this school
year.
The Journal was unable to find a statewide salary survey that
includes all income reported on W-2 forms, but a check of
several of the largest and most affluent school districts in
Michigan found only one that paid its superintendent more than
Grand Blanc last year: Detroit, where the superintendent's W-2
income was $244,800.
The next closest was Forest Hills in the Grand Rapids area,
where the superintendent made $206,110 in 2003.
W-2 income for superintendents in Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills,
Grand Rapids, Grosse Pointe, Lake Orion and Plymouth-Canton all
came in below $175,000.
"I think you have to look at the results," said school board
President Russell Kirksey. "Grand Blanc (School District) is
recognized as one of the best in the state."
The district has leaner administrative staffing than many
others, Kirksey said. Standard & Poor's reported that Grand
Blanc's administrative costs were $683 per student, compared to
the state average of $956 and $896 for districts similar to
Grand Blanc.
As for why the school board pays Lipe more than $50,000 in perks
that don't show up in his base salary of $162,067, Kirksey said
that was nothing unusual.
"It's something that other districts do, other ways of
structuring the contract," he said.
Healthy compensation
Dr. Robert Cuthbertson, medical director of Genesee County
Community Mental Health, is the highest-paid government official
on the list, making $243,868 in 2003. That works out to about
$82 an hour for a 40-hour work week, plus another $73,000 in
weekend and on-call pay.
"My pay is comparable to other medical directors in other
counties," said Cuthbertson, whose agency provides psychiatric
services to poor people and others who are severely mentally
ill.
Oakland County's CMH director, who is part-time and works about
20 hours a week, makes $100 an hour, a spokeswoman for the
department said.
Macomb County's full-time CMH director made $142,075 last year,
a spokeswoman said, and Kent County pays a private contractor
$125 an hour to be its CMH medical director, a spokesman said.
Seven staff psychiatrists at Genesee County CMH also are in the
top 20 on the salary list, making between $137,307 and $219,470
last year. The median pay for psychiatrists nationwide was
$162,000 in 2002, according to the Feb. 23 issue of Modern
Healthcare magazine.
"You get what you pay for"
Chow said his 2003 pay is in line with school chiefs in
similar-sized districts, and the added perks that raise his pay
are consistent with the market.
He noted his salary is slightly below the pay of Lansing
Superintendent E. Sharon Banks, who oversees the state's
fifth-largest district and made a total of $179,584 in 2003.
"Whether someone is overpaid or underpaid is relative," Chow
said. "I say you get what you pay for.
"As superintendent, I have prevented the district from going
into bankruptcy. Without me here, we would have spent, lost or
wasted $40 million over the last two years. But some people
don't want to give me the credit. That's OK, I accept that."
Svitkovich said the higher-paid superintendents -- including
himself, Chow and Lipe -- all have doctorates that should bring
higher pay, as should experience. Svitkovich said he has been a
school administrator for more than 35 years.
"The superintendent, in most cases, is the chief operating
officer of a major multimillion-dollar corporation serving
thousands of people, and our compensation package is parallel to
what the marketplace dictates," Svitkovich said.
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