Inquirer Editorial: Super-sized salaries

The Christie administration has taken another step that shows he's serious about changing public education.

Proposed salary caps published last week would limit how much school districts can pay their top administrators. No more lucrative salary packages that taxpayers can't afford, or bonuses that cannot be justified.

Gov. Christie calls it restoring fiscal "sanity," but reality might be a better word to describe the situation. Districts must find ways to cope with less funding under the state's new 2 percent cap on property-tax increases.

But the salary caps for administrators can be good news for students, if the $9.8 million saved annually as a result is pumped back into classrooms.

No doubt, administrators will lobby hard against the caps at four upcoming hearings. They say limiting salaries will make it hard to attract the best superintendents. But the average salary for a superintendent in New Jersey is already $154,409, about $9,000 above the national average, according to the state Association of School Administrators.

And many school chiefs make more than that with bonus-laden contracts and perks. They get fringe benefits such as cars, laptops, and cell phones. Some are paid more than Christie's $175,000 annual salary - in some cases to operate a single school.

About 70 percent of superintendents statewide already earn more than the proposed limits. Christie's plan would set a pay ceiling and implement a better system for awarding performance bonuses.

The caps would apply to superintendents, assistant superintendents, and business administrators. Pay would be determined by a district's size, rather than being arbitrary. For example, the top base pay for the superintendent of a district with up to 250 students would be $120,000. In a district of 3,001 to 10,000 students, it would be $175,000.

The state education commissioner could approve higher salaries in the 16 largest districts with more than 10,000 students, including Cherry Hill and Camden.

Ambitious superintendents could bring home more money by meeting specific benchmarks. But their one-year bonus would not count toward their pension.

The bonus criteria must be written carefully to avoid bogus moves to justify the extra pay. Former Camden superintendent Annette Knox was forced to resign after giving herself $17,690 in performance bonuses based on rigged test scores.

Give Christie credit for also forming a task force to consider evaluating educators on how well their students learn. Teachers who get good results deserve merit pay. The challenge ahead is for Christie to tone down his rhetoric and get the unions to work with him. That's the governor's test.