Public school administrators like to argue that they should be paid in the high six figures because that is what private CEOs make. The problem is that you can somewhat justify private salaries because they are not paid to unproductive people. The salaries reflect compensation for those who make their companies profitable.
In public schools we judge administrators, for the most part, by test scores, graduation rates, dropout rates, etc. On that basis you would think that the Santa Ana Unified School District would NOT have the highest paid administrators, and from what I can tell, we don’t. But we do have a lot of administrators who are making a ton of money, at public expense, as reported in today’s Orange County Register, and as seen in the graphic above.
Most of our administrators are making about double what they would make in private industry. Check out the building inspector, Kevin Chris Rehmann. He is pulling down $151,480.00. No way an inspector would make that in private industry. According to the HR manager occupational profile provided by the State of California’s Employment Development Department, the highest paid construction and building inspectors make about $83K a year. This guy is making almost double the private industry salary for his position!
And check out what Juan Lopez, the District’s equivalent to an HR director, is pulling down – $177K. According to the HR manager occupational profile provided by the State of California’s Employment Development Department, the highest paid HR managers make about $147K a year. Lopez is being paid substantially above scale for his position.
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