El Paso school district administrative salaries are well above the state average, according to figures that former El Paso school board trustee Dan Wever has gleaned from the Texas Education Agency website.
The average pay for central office administrators went from $70.521 in the 2004-2005 school to $101,101 two years later in the 2007-08 school year, he said. At that time, the state average for top administrators was $76,324.
The $101,101 figure compares with a state average of $83,529 statewide and $79,364 in the Dallas school district. (Download a Word document containing a chart of TEA data below.)
“This year the salaries went up even higher,” Wever said. “TEA’s public data is always a year behind, but I have their data for El Paso and it’s worse than last year.”
The highest paid administrator in the El Paso district is school Superintendent Lorenzo Garcia, who is paid $272,944 with an $18,000 car allowance and annual phone allowance of $6,000.
Wever, who was president of the El Paso school board when he was defeated for re-election in 2003, has sent the data to members of the current board but has gotten no response.
NewspaperTree.com has requested an explanation for the numbers from the school district.
Some big city school superintendents in Texas do get paid more that Garcia. Houston schools Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra, for instance, just received a $77,500 annual bonus on top of his $327,000 salary, according to the Houston Chronicle.
What has happened in the El Paso district, Wever said, is that salaries increases have escalated much faster than school districts typically allow.
In 2005-06, Wever said, the El Paso school district had 47 people with a title of director or higher working in central administration and making a salaries totaling of $3.6 million.
This year, he said, there are 71 top administrators, including 19 new ones averaging $96,000 each, and their salaries total $6.7 million in all.
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To reach David Crowder, write to dcrowder@epmediagroup.com or call (915) 351-0605, ext. 30
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