1/11/10 (Rochester, N.Y.) – Rochester City School District Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard has the most expensive cabinet in district history.
Brizard has said the district needs to reduce administrative costs. Through the Freedom of Information Law, 13WHAM News learned he is doing the opposite when it comes to his top-level staff.
The Superintendent Employee Group, traditionally referred to as the cabinet, is covered by its own employment contract. They receive severance pay and other benefits that other district employees do not receive. This non-union group has 36 administrators and 14 secretaries who earn a combined $5.05 million.
That’s an increase of 13 staff members and $1.5 million in payroll expenses in the two years Brizard has been superintendent.
Brizard’s predecessor, Interim Superintendent William Cala, had trimmed the cabinet to 24 administrators and 13 secretaries with a combined payroll of $3.52 million.
The superintendent before Cala, Manuel Rivera, was roundly criticized for increasing his cabinet payroll by 45 percent. In the 2006-07 school year, Rivera’s cabinet had 49 staff members who earned $4.81 million. Brizard’s spending on cabinet staff now exceeds Rivera’s.
The increase in cabinet-level spending came when the district was facing multi-million dollar budget gaps and teacher job cuts.
“I’m disappointed,” said Rochester Teachers Association President Adam Urbanski. “He’s been saying he wants to right-size the district. Apparently, right-sizing means taking from classrooms.”
“I think it confirms what we suspected, that he was cutting lower-level staff to pay for more cabinet staff,” said Dan DiClemente, president of the Board of Education Non-Teaching Employees union.
The district would not comment on our analysis. Brizard does not consider the entire SEG to be his cabinet, as it includes lower-level managers and support staff. 13WHAM News calculates the cost of the entire SEG membership, to ensure consistency and accuracy when comparing administrations of prior superintendents. This prevents superintendents from arbitrarily defining who is in their cabinets.
In an email, a spokesman said the district has cut 107 jobs from Central Office, and is poised to cut even more. In a news release sent out Monday afternoon, the district said the superintendent has fewer staff reporting directly to him. “The changes reflect a new organizational culture – one in which a lean, agile central administration is highly responsive to school needs.”
District unions have questioned the number of Central Office job cuts, saying positions have been shifted to other district offices or replaced by new titles. “If you do the math, it doesn’t add up,” said DiClemente.
The mayor stopped short of criticizing Brizard’s cabinet-level spending, but said streamlining bureaucracy is one of the reasons he wants control of the district. “Here are opportunities to assess both organizations to take a measure of the talent and staff at both organizations. I think we can reduce bureaucracy tremendously,” said Robert Duffy.
Raises Handed Out
While many SEG members received no raises, others received raises of 5 percent or more between the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years.
Some of the employees who got raises have new titles. When Alpha Daily-Majors went from Director of Human Resources to Director of Human Capital Initiatives, her salary increased by 8 percent to $111,500. A secretary who became assigned to the superintendent received a 10 percent raise, bringing her salary to $74,525. A labor relations specialist who was promoted a manager received a 37 percent increase, bringing her salary to $85,000.
Other employees got significant raises, even though their titles did not change. The Director of School innovation, Mary Doyle, got a 5 percent raise, bringing her salary to $100,000. The Chief of Youth and Family Services, Gladys Pedraza-Burgos, got a 14 percent raise, bumping her salary to $108,000. One secretary got a 13 percent raise and another got a 7 percent increase.
