With mold and mushrooms growing in their classrooms, teachers in the Detroit Public Schools system are protesting unsafe work conditions. But with long-term debt totaling $3.5 billion, the district doesn’t have money to go around for much-needed maintenance.
As the district’s schools fall further into disrepair, an investigation by WXYZ Detroit, the local ABC affiliate, found exorbitant salaries for the district’s executives. The district’s executive director of communications, Michelle Zdrodowski, earns $161,111 a year. The district’s Chief Procurement Officer, Medina Noor, makes $157,00 a year. On top of those salaries, executives get an extremely generous benefits package that includes almost 50 days off per year. And those are their salaries after the 10 percent wage cut that every district employee had to endure, including teachers who make far less.
Six-figure salaries aside, the executives are getting paid much more than comparable executives in larger (and better run) urban school districts. Zdrodowski’s counterparts ins Los Angeles and Chicago are paid less, even though they have more than six and four times as many students as Detroit. Noor gets paid just as much as her counterpart in Los Angeles, and more than her counterparts in Dallas and Philadelphia who have almost twice as many students as Detroit. Steve Wasko, the district’s Executive Director for Enrollment, makes more than his counterparts in Chicago and Philadelphia.
“It’s a pattern that repeats itself with executives who oversee food, special education, risk management, and charter schools,” writes WXYZ’s Kim Russell (no relation to this author). “All rank at, or near, the top in pay.”
Alone, these high salaries didn’t put the district billions of dollars in debt. But how much has the district paid in excessive salaries over the last few decades? And why are district leaders who appear incompetent getting paid more than similar executives in other urban districts?
Because the district is so far in debt, 41 cents of every dollar it gets from the state in per-pupil funding goes straight toward paying off debt.
While executives enjoy six-figure salaries, the average teacher salary is $57,758 — about $4,500 less than the state average, according to the Michigan Department of Education. Still, that is much higher than the median household income in Detroit: $26,325.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
