Yo, Money! OUSD Superintendent Gets 2nd Retroactive Pay Hike In 4 Months
Posted by: Jubal | 01/21/2008 1:38 PM
Greater Orange News Service Blog posted this item last week about the Orange Unified School District Superintendent, Thomas Godley, getting a retroactive 3.5% pay hike just four months after receiving his previous raise. The OAUD Board majority awarded the latest hike in December 2007:
OUSD Superintendent Godley gets another 3.5% Pay Hike four months after last oneYou can read the rest of the post here.
Just four months after an unprecedented pay hike to Orange Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Thomas Godley's contracted salary, the so called Godley Majority of the Orange Unified School Board approved another retroactive 3.5 % pay hike in the Superintendent's salary and all other district administrators at the December 13th Orange Unified School Board Meeting. This week at the January 17th, 2008 meeting, the Superintendent has asked the OUSD Board to approve another .25% retroactive raise for the district administrators (Agenda Item 12 C page 9).
In June 2006, Godley received a 4.75% retroactive raise. Then in August 2007 the next pay hike for Godley put his salary over $240,000 annually and included an unprecedented automatic 2% annual longevity raise, and a yearly $2500.00 bonus for having his doctorial degree, in addition that pay hike was also retroactive. The current retroactive pay hike of 3.5% goes to July 2007 which is one month before the last Godley pay hike in August 2007.
The latest 3.5 % raise given at the December OUSD Board meeting to Godley and the rest of the OUSD administrators (collectively known as Leadership) was again a result of an identical raise given to the district's Classified (support) staff. OUSD Trustee Rick Ledesma again took exception to the tactic of automatically granting the district administrators a raise every time the OUSD Administration successfully reaches a negotiated salary settlement with the district's labor representatives. After much discussion on both sides, the final vote for the unprecedented salary hike for the OUSD Superintendent was 4-2. The Godley Majority- Trustees Kathy Moffat, Melissa Smith, Wes Poutsma, and Kim Nichols all voted Yes (Trustee John Ortega was absent for a family matter) and minority Trustees Rick Ledesma and Steve Rocco both voted No.
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Mr. Ayer registered as a Republican to be electable in an interim election with no incumbents. He did...
The ratepayers of OUSD have more to worry about from the right-thinking members of their board than they do from Rocco.
The automatic raise to administrators as a result of a raise to the classified staff is right out of the Capo District playbook.
Given the fact that all the school districts are facing potential significant cuts, this raise is at best, irresponsible.
it is supposed to be a COLA raise for all the leadership employees but what is difficult to stomach are the cuts the Gov made, the incredible legal fees OUSD pays to deal with all the lawsuits (mostly in special education because they prefer to screw families first then pay quadruple settlements later in typical public school fashion) and our declining enrollment/ADA problems.
K-12 has problems inherent in the beast, too many unfunded mandates, the disaster of NCLB, a state who is always cutting funds and the challenge of teaching a diverse learner population. OUSD is a good district but we could do better.
The issue is that it just looks bad when raises are granted in time of fiscal crisis, whether or not it is deserved. If OUSD could manage better, perhaps this raise wouldn't be so hard for everyone to swallow.
Regarding Rocco, if he was with it, perhaps he would be a reasonable voice on spending. His personal issues prevent the board from having a full member in that seat, he has no voice, its a wasted vote. We really need a fully participative board member to join the others in finding the right solution to our district's challenges.