Audit: Syosset top educators' pay too high

The Syosset school district spends far more on salaries and fringe benefits for its top administrators than districts with similar budgets, enrollments and educational needs and resources, a state comptroller's audit said.

Nearly all of the district's spending on fringe benefits -- including contributions to tax-sheltered annuities, car allowances and premiums for life and disability insurance -- went to the superintendent, deputy superintendent and assistant superintendent for business, according to the audit. It examined spending from July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2010.

Overall, Syosset's administrative salaries were higher by as much as $2.7 million over those two years than the average administrative costs at six comparable districts -- three chosen by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's office and three by Syosset itself.

The three top people accounted for 89 percent of the district's fringe benefit costs in the 2008-09 fiscal year and 91 percent the following year.

The comptroller made one recommendation: Syosset, which has nearly 6,700 students in 10 schools, should bring administrators' pay in line with similar districts.

"We are suggesting the district lower its administrative costs," said Mark Johnson, a spokesman for the office. "We are not suggesting how they do it."

District justifies pay

Syosset officials said their leaders earn more because they've worked in the district for more than 20 years, and the continuity boosts student achievement.

The audit comes as teacher and administrator salaries and benefits are being challenged both by elected officials and by the impact of financial realities, including rising health care costs, pensions, declining enrollment and a new 2 percent property-tax cap.

A year ago, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo suggested a salary ceiling of $175,000 for school superintendents, using Syosset to illustrate a point about wasteful spending.

Syosset Superintendent Carole Hankin and Deputy Superintendent Jeffrey Streitman were among New York's 10 highest-paid public school administrators in a November ranking by the Empire Center for New York State Policy, an Albany think tank that analyzed state data for 2010-11.

Hankin topped the list with $506,382 in salary and benefits, while Streitman was seventh, with $368,557. The assistant superintendent for business at the time of the comptroller's audit has since left the district.

The superintendent now is getting a total of $541,454 and the deputy $419,033 in salary, benefits and "other," according to the state Education Department. The third-highest paid is an assistant superintendent who gets a total of $265,567.

Excluding those three, the district's fringe benefits cost less per administrator than those in other, comparable districts, the audit said.

The district told auditors it trimmed five administrative positions in the 2011-12 fiscal year, a fact the report couldn't account for.

School board president Marc Herman said Syosset is "continuously developing cost-saving programs and initiatives" and has saved $1.2 million since the 2008-2009 school year through an administrative reorganization.

"Syosset Central School District continues to rank among the highest-achieving districts in the nation," he said.

Salaries above average

DiNapoli said the total base salary Syosset paid to its administrators exceeded the average in the Half Hollow Hills, East Meadow and West Islip districts -- comparable districts auditors selected -- by $827,693 in 2008-2009 and $384,044 the next year.

On average, the salary paid administrators at those school systems in 2008-09 was about $130,000, compared with $159,000 at Syosset.

The audit found that Syosset's three top earners were paid nearly five times the fringe benefits of their peers in the Half Hollow Hills, East Meadow and West Islip districts in both years examined: Syosset outspent the others by $205,280 in 2008-2009 and $214,544 the following year.

When the comptroller's office did the same fringe-benefit comparison against districts Syosset said it considers more comparable -- Great Neck, Port Washington and Three Village -- the gap grew even wider: Syosset spent $201,322 more in 2008-2009 and $231,162 the year after.

"Although district officials indicated that they review other districts' administrative costs, they could not provide us with any evidence that they had actually done such reviews to evaluate the reasonableness of either administrative salaries or fringe benefits for its top administrators," the audit said.

Jeff Rozran, president of Syosset's teachers union, said the comptroller's office didn't provide enough data about the comparisons it made. He said the office is "supposed to be seeking wrongdoing" and he was uncertain why it would hone in on lawful school board decisions.

"I really don't understand the audit at all," Rozran said. He said the superintendent has been unfairly targeted and is "worth every penny that she is paid."

But resident Peter Ennis, a longtime critic, said Hankin's salary is unsustainable.

"I think the notion that a superintendent in Syosset should be making more money than the president of the United States is just beyond absurd," he said. "It's not like Syosset was some derelict school district that she turned around."

Syosset, in response to the audit, sent a ranking of 53 Nassau public school districts that included the district's calculation of administrative-cost-per-pupil, based on 2011-12 administrators' salaries compiled by the state Education Department. The calculation showed the district ranking 23rd among them.

However, the salary figure Syosset used did not include administrators' fringe and other benefits. When those costs are included, Syosset ranks 12th in the county for administrative costs, Newsday's analysis of the data showed.