CMS raises: Quirks and ironies

The release of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' market adjustment raises has raised questions and highlighted some strange twists in the system.

Let's start with principal pay, a hot topic for years.  Teachers, principals and assistant principals are all on state pay schedules, leading some to wonder why the administrators were eligible for market bumps while teachers were not.

That's because the state scales prescribe exactly what a teacher makes based on experience and credentials,  but give a range for administrators,  says CMS Human Resources Chief Dan Habrat.  CMS used the market raises to bump 58 principals and 34 assistants higher in their range.  Thus, East Meck Principal Rick Parker,  whose $93,000 salary was apparently the most out of whack based on the 2007 study,  ends up with a 19 percent raise after a $14,744 adjustment and the 3 percent across-the-board raise.

I was surprised to see strategic staffing principals on the adjustment list.   In his five years with CMS,  Peter Gorman made that program his showcase,  tapping top principals to bring a team into struggling schools.  Those principals got 10 percent raises,  and even in the midst of the recession he and the board found money to keep expanding that program.  Does this mean those top performers were still below 2007 market wages,  even after their 10 percent hike?

Well,  no.  Habrat told me last night that strategic staffing is considered a  "bonus program,"  with the 10 percent an add-on for taking on that specific challenge.  The market raises were calculated based on "core salaries" before the 10 percent hikes,  he said.

So does that means the 10 percent raises go away when the three-year strategic staffing term is completed and/or the principal moves to another school?   Again,  no.  Principals keep the 10 percent strategic staffing raise and the market hike as long as they're in a principal job with CMS (or even if they're reassigned but not demoted,  as witnessed by the fact that an assistant principal who was briefly a high school principal is consistently one of CMS' highest-paid employees).

An irony emerged when CMS released the long-awaited word on who got the top market raise of  $17,202.  It went to an executive director leading a five-year,  federally-funded pilot program designed to see if teacher performance pay could boost student achievement.  The job Susan Norwood now holds didn't exist when CMS did the 2007 study and won't exist by the end of this school year.  There's no sign yet that the TIF-LEAP merit-pay program yielded clear evidence on student achievement  --  but that doesn't matter,  because the market raises aren't based on program results or individual performance.

Back in 2007,  Deloitte Consulting looked at eight CMS executive director jobs  (transportation, public information, professional development, employee relations, human resources, budget, accounting and partnerships)  and compared those wages with pay for similar jobs in education,  government and nonprofit agencies.  The market scale they came up with is what was used to determine whether today's executive directors needed a bump to make competitive salaries,  Habrat said.

Finally,  it's worth noting that Superintendent Heath Morrison is launching studies of the effectiveness of his communications and HR departments,  saying both are crucial to the strategic plan he'll unveil after his first 100 days.  Without pointing fingers at individuals,  I think it's fair to say this provides a case study in room for improvement.

A month after the school board approved this pay plan,  CMS released specifics to employees and the public.  On Wednesday,  all employees got an email saying they could check their individual raise eligibility on the CMS  "employee self service" system.  But that system told teachers they weren't eligible for even the 3 percent raises.  Habrat said last night that was an error;  updating the teacher pay scales is more complicated and will take a few more days,  he said.  CMS is following up today with a correction.

Likewise,  I left the office at 8 p.m. Wednesday with no answers to follow-up questions based on the raise list.  Habrat called at 9,  after I emailed him, Morrison and spokeswoman Tahira Stalberte to say a "Habrat and Morrison weren't available to answer questions" story was online and headed for print  (Stalberte says Morrison was tied up in back-to-back community meetings).

Morrison has vowed to be nimble and responsive to public and press questions.  He and his team are going to face their share of curve balls in the months ahead.  But when you've got a month to prepare, we're still playing slow-pitch.

Update 5 p.m.:  Christine Mast has shared a CMS email noting that the $3.6 million county cost for the market raises was an estimate that turned out to be low.  The new email sets the tab at $4.35 million from the county,  including benefits,  and an additional $1.1 million from other sources,  such as federal grants and revenue from the lunch and after-school programs.