"PUBLIC SCRUTINY" the 2014-15 Salary List

Suspicion anyone who criticizes our release of this salary list. Remember this is public sector, not private. That is why KY law requires school districts provide for "public scrutiny" of the salary list for each fiscal year just ended. Shame your local newspaper to whom the list must be provided will not publish it.

The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) recommends school districts spend no more than 73% of their annual operating budget on salaries.  Scott County Schools spends 83% of its $54 million budget. According to KDE's recommendation, Scott County should spend NO MORE than 73% of $54,000,000 or $39,420,000, but in fact spends 83% of $54,000,000 or $44,820,000.  $44,820,000 minus $39,420,00 means Scott County Schools spends $5,400,000 more than the maximum recommendation on salaries EACH AND EVERY YEAR!!!

No one, least of all us, begrudges any of the teachers and necessary support personnel in the list below their well deserved salaries.  But there's plenty of names on this list whose efforts have little or nothing to do with students in the classroom.  Over five million dollars each and every year is spent on employees whose activities lie outside the classroom, explaining all those bimmers and such choking the parking lot outside Central Office during school hours many school days. Who knows where they are when not at Central Office? And we wonder why we haven't the money to build a proper second high school.

Remember, there are two piles of money in school districts - the General Fund and the Construction Fund. The General Fund funds the operating budget, and the Construction Fund builds our schools.  Scott County Schools robs its Construction Fund regularly to satiate its salary appetite, yet never provides its Construction Fund any General Funds money, which is entirely allowable and even encouraged by law. The salary list below is where  $44,820,00 of the General Fund is spent each year, leaving just $9 million dollars to operate all other facets of the district. No wonder we could never (and still can't) afford all day kindergarten.

Each year in early September your duly elected School Board raises your school taxes 4%, just as they did a few weeks ago again this year.  Just a couple of years ago the Roger Ward led School Board approved an outrageous 27% school tax increase, but rescinded it only when a citizen petition forced it to be placed for a public vote. Our current School Board can not snap its fingers and undo the years of previous Board's complacency (or complicity), but contribute to our salary burden by not scrutinizing new hiring and new positions.  Analysis of the list below shows that in the last two years alone, non-school bus driving personnel costs in Scott's Transportation Department have increased over $200,000 dollars. Well over $200 thousand in fact, just in administrative positions in this one department. Where's the value added?  Take your 4% if you must School Board, but don't expect the taxpayers of this county to ante up any more to cover the excesses.

KY State Law requires school districts to provide the list below to their local newspaper.  Your newspaper's publisher, Mike Scogin, receives but chooses to not publish the list, claiming it too expensive to do so.  He also refused to provide a copy of the list this year (see previous post) and refused to quote a price for others to pay him to publish the list.  But his heart is truly revealed in his not posting it on his newspaper's website. There, it costs him nothing, save perhaps his wife's job in the school district and his paper's propping up.

Remember the list below is for what each listed employee was paid for the entire fiscal year ended this past June 30.  Low salaries may be explained by an employee not working the entire year. Oh, and understand there are many different contract terms - such as Mike Luscher's 100 day a year contract, all the way up to "full time" 260 day contracts that the list doesn't specify. Should you wish to compare to the 2013-14 list we posted last year, you must search the "older posts"  and go to the September 24, 2014 post "Public Trough".  The random nature of the list is Superintendent Putty's signature. Wonder who it is she has purposely randomize it.

While this list doesn't explain where the construction money goes, it does show why we can't fix Garth's AC.

THE PUBLIC TROUGH

Can you remember when there was an element of sacrifice to work in a local school system?  The pay was not much but the benefits and the hours helped offset the sacrifice. Well, it’s still that way for the lower paid classified employees such as cafeteria workers, custodial staff and bus drivers, but the pay for the rest way outpaces private sector jobs. You will find the proof below. Yes, and all with job schedules unlike anywhere else! Just choose – do you want to work 100 days a year? 185 days? 240 days or a full contract of 260 days? Your choice and the excellent benefits remain. Plus there’s double, even triple dipping on retirement, meaning you can retire and draw your retirement check, all the while going back to work at your same previous high rate of pay, and the school system contributes money to your second or even third retirement account.

And now we know why so many keep quiet. These high salaries buy a lot of silence. So it’s no surprise that most of the complaints that come to the schstoobig confidential email account are from the lower paid employees. But most interesting is that none – zero – of those complaints have been about pay.  Rather, the complaints are all about either wrong doing or mistreatment they suffer at the hands of the high salaried.

Below you will find the purposely randomized, raw data the Scott County School Board provided the reluctant Georgetown News Graphic to minimally satisfy the latest state law we have called them on. The law does not require the News Graphic to print it.  But you should. A big "THANK YOU" to Carole Landry for acquiring this copy of the list from the News Graphic. Let us know if you need your own copy.

Some notes : the district went to pains to randomize the data. It is not organized either alphabetically, numerically, vocationally or otherwise - it is random to make it difficult to analyze. This alone should tell you more than you need to know.

It's not alphabetical for a couple of reasons. First, it prevents easily finding an individual's or a peer's salary. But more importantly, it prevents the community from seeing how many high paid administrators have spouses and children feeding well at the same trough.

The dollar amounts do not necessarily reflect a salary. The dollar amounts reflect what the Board paid out to each individual listed over the course of the 2013-14 school year - not necessarily that individual's salary. For example - newly hired Director of Safety Mark Wikersham worked only a couple of months after being hired before taking a leave of absence for the balance of the year after his DUI arrest (he was welcomed back by Board Member Becky Sams at the September 9^th board meeting). His amount therefore is low as are others such as newly hired Director of Transportation Roy Prince, etc.

Another reason a salary may appear low is because no information is provided as to what position each individual holds nor, and more importantly - how many days their contract requires they work a year. While a typical full time job is a 260 day contract, many of these dollar amounts reflect greatly reduced days. For example - Director of Facilities Mike Luscher is a 100 day employee. Not bad pay for 100 days. Especially for a double dipper!

We intend soon to have some OCR software that will allow us to enter this list into a spreadsheet. Then some meaningful analysis can begin. We will also explore the hundreds of thousands of dollars Scott County taxpayers are spending yearly on employees who work not for Scott County Schools but rather for the KDE under an arrangement called – Memorandum of Agreement. Certainly notice the over $100,000 salaries but the big news here is the proliferation of $60 to $90,000 salaries. And remember, this data is for the last school year.  Those $90,000 salaries are now likely $100,000.  Enjoy.