LETTERS: School superintendent pay a hot topic
As a resident of Commack, I thought your headline was a reprint from several years ago ["LI's school chiefs top state pay list," News, Nov. 12]. It seems like only yesterday that we were reading about the outrageous (but oh so legal) pension of the infamous James Hunderfund. But no, this article was about his successor, James Feltman, and his $657,970 payout upon retirement. Of course, this soars way past ridiculous, is beyond unbelievable and borders on obscene.
But what is most unsettling is the comment from the Commack school district spokeswoman, Brenda Lentsch, who justifies the insanity by saying that Feltman was a dedicated person who rarely took time off. Gee, do you think Feltman would have rarely taken time off if he wasn't able to bank that time and cash it out later?
I don't expect a rational answer to this question. After all, these are people who are hopelessly out of touch with reality. To them, the well never runs dry.
Michael Infranco
Commack
Looking at the superintendents' salaries, I think they should at least be able to play shortstop.
Lorraine Wodhanil
Part of the justification for these salaries is that Long Island has a very high cost of living, but not three times the cost upstate, as claimed by Jericho Schools Superintendent Henry Grishman.
The biggest problem is not with the wages being paid, but with the enormous pensions that are a result of these salaries. Former upstate administrators (for example, Grishman) accept a position on Long Island for the last three to five years of their career, thus increasing their pensions based upon the higher salary.
Anthony J. Schmitt III
I was outraged to see the misleading headline on the front page of Friday's Newsday.
It appeared that retired Commack Superintendent James Feltman had earned a salary of $657,970 in his last year of employment. On Page A3, we learn that his base salary was $249,905, which is fairly average for the superintendent of a large suburban school district.
Most midlevel administrators employed by Long Island school districts such as directors, principals and department administrators earn salaries ranging from $125,000 to $175,000. They earn these high salaries after many years of experience and advanced degrees. If the chief executive of a school district is earning 50 percent more than the midlevel administrators, that seems reasonable to me.
The additional compensation of nearly $400,000 was because of unused sick days and vacation days accrued over 20 years. The man rarely took a day off and deserves to be compensated.
If you really want to practice balanced journalism, why not write about the chief executives of private industry? The chief executive of the parent corporation of Mott's, the apple company, earns $6.5 million. Such obscene salaries come at the expense of company workers who are barely getting by and are losing their middle-class way of life. Let's give these folks some front-page coverage as well.
Lou Sabatini
Editor's note: The writer is a retired public school guidance director.
What a completely hollow defense of bloated school district salaries from the board president of the Half Hollow Hills district. According to the president, the district superintendent is a "bargain" at $351,946 because "he's got 10,000 kids that he gets to school every day."
For roughly $100,000 less, the New York City schools chancellor gets 1.1 million kids to school every day.
Apparently, education about the meaning of the word "bargain" is not a strong suit of the Half Hollow Hills system.
David Robins
Long Island has 124 school districts, each with its own superintendent and supporting cast of assistant superintendents and/or functional superintendents, such as a superintendent of human resources. Each school district also has a central cast of administrators and negotiates its own budget, school bus contracts and teachers' salaries. In short, it's a mess.
The bottom line is that Long Island has some of the highest school taxes in the country. In the meantime, New York ranks 49th in terms of SAT scores, according to datamasher.org, and is the second-highest after New Jersey in per-pupil expenditures. What are these superintendents and their super salaries putting on the table?
These districts could be consolidated within the three BOCES districts on Long Island. This would result in a savings for superintendents' salaries, not to mention the cast of assistant superintendents. The original school districts could keep their boards and parent-teacher associations but submit their budgets to the central district.
How much longer before Long Island simply becomes a sea of abandoned homes?
Stephen Hartman
Sarra Sounds Off, Ep. 15: LI's top basketball players On the latest episode of "Sarra Sounds Off," Newsday's Gregg Sarra and Matt Lindsay take a look top boys and girls basketball players on Long Island.
