NEWBURYPORT — With upward of 60 Massachusetts school districts seeking new leadership, school leaders lamented last night that it's a tough year to be looking for a superintendent.
Rumblings from the community have been hinting that the city will have to pay more than the $140,500 it paid former Superintendent Kevin Lyons if it wants to bring top talent to the district, and it seems the School Committee agrees a higher salary — at least in the $150,000 range — may be the only way to attract good candidates.
"We've got tough economic times, and from a financial point of view we're very constrained, but at the same time we want to hire a super superintendent and super superintendents cost money," said Gordon Bechtel at the outset of last night's School Committee meeting, which laid out the predicament Newburyport finds itself in as it seeks a new leader.
According to their data based on 276 school districts across the state, the search firm of Hazard, Attea, Young and Associates found the average superintendent's salary in the neighboring communities of Amesbury, Triton, Georgetown and Pentucket is slightly higher than some areas of the state, and falls into the $150,000 range, give or take $5,000, according to committee member Bruce Menin.
Menin said salaries of comparable districts, which educate the same number of students as Newburyport and with similar achievement results, also pay their superintendents approximately $150,000.
But in the communities of Holliston and Winchester, which are districts whose model and performance Newburyport "aspires" to, that salary falls somewhere between $160,000 and $185,000, Menin said.
"I pulled out 36 school districts across Massachusetts," said Menin, who came up with an average base salary of $144,377, not taking into account regional tendencies toward higher and lower pay by district.
In the Newburyport region, schools of similar size, such as Masconomet, Amesbury and Ipswich, are paying an average of $148,000, he said.
Lyons, who came to the district as a former assistant superintendent from Hopkinton, was being paid a $140,500 base salary when he left Newburyport.
"We had an incredibly good deal in Dr. Lyons," said committee member Nick deKanter, "not only because he was such an outstanding leader for our district, but also because of what we were paying him."
When it comes to shouldering a higher salary, which the committee appears to agree is necessary in order to reach a good candidate in a competitive market, there was talk of finding creative ways to provide non-salary perks to the prospective candidates.
"I think we're going to have to look at ways to encourage someone to work here that aren't completely based on salary," said Menin, who brought up the idea of constructing a "menu" of benefits Newburyport might be willing to provide, like housing, a housing allocation or even a boat mooring down on the riverfront.
Member Stephanie Weaver offered that the charm of working in Newburyport itself might be of some value to prospective candidates.
"It's been said by many living in this community and working in this city that there are some benefits to living in the city that add to the package that might not be monetary," she said.
While Chairman John Moak said he agreed with that premise, he said there is another aspect to working in Newburyport that the School Committee must keep in mind when filling the position. While Newburyport is a great place to live, it can be tough on its decision makers, he said.
"I also understand Newburyport is a tough community to work in," Moak said. "We don't have much control over that, other than how we support (the superintendent). That's got to be shown with any candidate that we select. They have to understand that's sincere support and not just a sales pitch."
Moak said the committee should consider as a bare minimum salary no less than $150,000 per year, considering what it costs to live here.
"We all want to be able to live well," he said. "One hundred fifty thousand dollars sounds like a lot of money, but that number is a number that one has to have in order to live in Newburyport and be able to enjoy it. The city is expensive to enjoy."
DeKanter indicated he would be inclined to support stretching for the superintendent's salary with the idea that a good candidate would save the district money when it came to stretching available dollars.
"I think like with everything, we get what we pay for," he said. "Paying a superintendent or stretching on the superintendent salary is not a cost, it's an investment. It's an investment that will come back to us many times over."
Member Steven Cole suggested the committee approach the City Council with a proposed salary range, given that they ultimately hold the purse strings for the city.
"In the end, we work within the confines provided by the City Council," said Cole, who referred to the troubles Lyons encountered before leaving the district.
"When he put together the list of things he wanted to work on to improve our school district, the money wasn't there. Given the reorganization he led, in the face of what came at us last year and what's coming, I think he saw that despite all he learned and understood about our school district, we really don't have the funds to sustain what we'd all like to see sustained. We really don't want to go out and find a great superintendent only to lose them again."
