I guarantee the topic of conversation around the kitchen tables of CMS teacher households this morning is the amazing salary creep at the top of CMS. Ann Doss Helms details the impact of Peter Gorman’s Grow the Center strategy in terms of six-figure salaries and finds the number of six-figure positions up 29 percent over last year, and a whopping 80 percent since Gorman took over.
But that is just part of the story. Take a look at who is making the money. As principal of Independence High, Nancy Bartles was widely viewed by teachers as overmatched and careening between fads. She now pulls down $151,000 as chief of the east “learning community.”
Better still, there is Edward Ellis. You may remember Ellis as the former principal of Waddell High who was fired by Gorman in November 2006 and then slotted at Providence High as an assistant principal. He now makes over $139,000 a year, up four percent from last year.
Interestingly, for a time Ellis was tagged an “administrator at-large” pulling down $131,000 a year and he still holds that title in the CMS database put together by the Uptown paper of record using CMS data. Yet Ellis is clearly listed as an asst. principal on the Providence Web site and Helms IDs him as such in her story.
What is going on here?
Well, things get clearer when you understand that Ellis is making $32,000 a year more than the principal of Providence and roughly twice as much as his fellow assistant principals at Providence. He is an “assistant principal” in terms of responsibility but a top administrator in terms of pay. Wonderful.
In the private sector you might see this type of arrangement for a few months while a top exec was eased out of the way and given a soft landing elsewhere in the organization. But the clear message would be that it is time to move on. Not so at CMS. No one ever moves on. Not unless they are charged with felony.
Update: Here’s another weird one, state Rep. Tricia Cotham is still listed as a full-time assistant principal of East Meck earning $57,000 a year despite the fact that CMS has repeatedly told us for a year now that Cotham is on unpaid leave.
I take this to mean that what CMS reports as employee compensation is really not — it is merely salary slots which may or may not reflect what a given individual is actually paid. An accurate report would list Cotham’s 2008 compensation at $0. Right?
