Educator salaries: Charter schools and new CMS data

Salaries for Charlotte-area educators are finally ready.  It took a bit longer this year because we are publishing charter school salaries for the first time,  and got more extensive information from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

The charter list was challenging,  and not only because of the state's misfire in initially saying charter schools weren't required to provide the data.  Each charter school is essentially its own district,  which meant that even after that mistake was corrected and schools provided the data,  it came from different sources in different formats,  often with different job titles and abbreviations.  That can make it difficult to sort and compare,  but it's a good start toward giving the public a look at payrolls in a form of public education that has extra flexibility and plays a growing role in our region.

In past years,  I've requested salaries and bonuses from CMS.  This year,  after working on an article about pay at community colleges,  I realized there are additional sources of income,  including state longevity pay.  So I requested all of those sources.  The result:  The CMS information is more complete,  but it's not comparable to prior years.

CMS provided total compensation from salaries,  bonuses,  longevity pay,  overtime,  stipends for extra duties,  allowances and fringe benefits that are reported as income to the IRS.  That means some people's pay looks bigger,  even if they got no raise in salary.  Meanwhile,  some listings will look unusually low because the district provided actual earnings from April 1,  2013,  to March 31,  2014,  rather than listing an annual salary as they have in the past.  That means someone who started after April 1 won't have a full year's pay listed.

Even the total number of employees  --  18,515 this year,  compared with 18,665 in 2013  --  isn't comparable.  As you might recall,  CMS changed the way it accounts for people who are not actually being paid but have the option to return to district jobs.  That happened after people raised questions about a Providence High teacher who had been appearing on the salary listings and the school website year after year,  despite the fact that he hadn't set foot in school for a decade  (turned out he was getting worker's comp,  not a district paycheck).  After that flap,  about 200 people on leave or other inactive status were removed from the CMS roster.

Which brings us to the perennial question:  Why name names?

Most agree that salaries for the folks at the top should be public,  but over the years many have questioned why we would list individual information for teachers,  assistants,  bus drivers and others who are public employees but not public figures.

The answer:  It lets people see if something is amiss in public spending.

Are relatives of those who influence spending holding public jobs,  and if so,  are their salaries reasonable?  Remember First Lady Mary Easley and her lucrative job at N.C. State?  Or, conversely,  the false rumors that Superintendent Peter Gorman had his wife on the CMS payroll?  How about this year's revelation that an administrator at StudentFirst Academy,  a new charter school, had family members on the payroll,  with other staffers raising questions about whether they were qualified or showing up for work?

Lawyer Richard Vinroot,  who represented the StudentFirst board when that administrator contested her firing in court,  is now representing Sugar Creek and Lincoln charter schools in fighting the Observer's request to disclose salaries by name.  Lawyers, legislators and maybe judges will sort out the legality of that position.

The schools have provided names and salaries of a few top administrators,  and salaries with names redacted for the rest.  Vinroot says if there are specific questions about lower-paid staff  --  for instance,  are charter employees related to board members or administrators?  --  the schools can answer without having to reveal everyone's names.

But you don't know what you don't know.  It might be obvious  (at least in hindsight)  to check on the governor's wife.  But without seeing the individual teacher's name,  no one would have thought to ask if Providence High had a  "phantom teacher"  on the payroll.  It turned out that he wasn't being paid for work he wasn't doing,  but isn't that exactly the kind of thing the public ought to question?

And while schools that are trying to do the right thing might answer questions honestly and completely,  can we trust those who have something to hide to do the same?  Providing details on those paid with public money lets us all do our own checking,  without having to guess or trust.

Finally,  to answer the questions that are sure to follow release of these salaries:  We're working on 2014 updates for regional school districts,  the city of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.  Stay tuned.

CMS payroll corrected

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools payroll data we posted last week contained incorrect annual salary information for about 1,250 hourly workers who were cut from 40-hour to 37.5-hour work weeks as part of this year's cost-cutting. CMS ran the numbers on the old 40-hour basis; the Observer's online database has now been corrected, thanks to an employee who noticed his listing was wrong and spoke up.

Most of the 18,202 listings, including all the highly-paid staff, were correct in the original listing, so the errors did not affect the analysis done for Sunday's article based on payroll data. The employees working 37.5-hour weeks are mostly assistants, according to CMS.

CMS payroll update

Lots of people have been checking the 2011 CMS payroll since we posted it late last week. Apologies to those who couldn't get data for some schools; there was a glitch that we fixed this afternoon.

Every year, I hear from a few CMS employees who think the pay we've listed for them is too high. I'm checking on a couple of issues, but so far CMS says they ones they've reviewed are correct. As some commenters have noted, there hasn't been much change in teachers' pay in the last three years because the promised bumps for experience have been frozen.

As usual, I've gotten a question about why Edward Ellis, assistant principal at Vance High, is making more than most CMS principals. At $142,874 a year, he's outearning his own principal by more than $30,000. Ellis was principal at Waddell High until 2006, when Superintendent Peter Gorman reassigned him to be an assistant at Providence High. Ellis kept his principal's pay and works a 12-month contract, unlike most assistant principals. Principals with less experience tend to be lower on the pay scale.

I haven't gotten the Sue Gorman question yet, but given the persistence of the rumor that the superintendent's wife is making big bucks, I'll go ahead and deal with that. Sue Gorman doesn't show up on the payroll because her role with Parent University, an effort her husband created to help families support their kids' education, is as a volunteer.

New CMS payroll data is online

The 2011 update on what people earn in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is online now. Look for a story in Sunday's Observer, as well as a blog report comparing the top 20 salaries in Wake and CMS.

We posted the first CMS payroll list in 2008, and have updated it every year since (updates to the city and county databases are coming, too). It was hugely controversial at first, and I know some educators still believe this violates their privacy. I feel for them, but my sense is that most people now see this as valuable public information. These days I get more queries seeking payroll data for public schools in surrounding counties than questions about why we publish CMS salaries.

Some readers have chafed at the limits of the online database. If you'd like the Excel version, email me at ahelms@charlotteobserver.com with "spreadsheet" in the header. Be patient, please; I won't get to this until Monday.