Is Easton Superintendent's Contract Too Generous?

Easton Area School Superintendent Susan McGinley’s contract has been a lightning rod over the past year with some residents questioning provisions ranging from automatic raises to a guaranteed administrative job should her contract not be renewed in 2013.

Using the Right to Know Law, Patch obtained copies of the contracts of the superintendents in Bethlehem, Parkland and East Penn school districts to see how they compare to that of McGinley, who oversees about 9,000 students.

Patch chose Parkland and East Penn because the districts have roughly the same number of students as Easton – about 9,300 for Parkland and about 8,000 for East Penn. While Bethlehem’s student population is larger – about 15,000 – it’s a city district like Easton.

Here’s how the superintendents’ salaries compare:  

* McGinley’s salary is $170,375, after accepting a $5,000 pay hike this year for completing her doctorate. But like other Easton administrators, she agreed to forgo her regular annual raise this year. 

* Joseph Roy, Ph.D., was hired in July 2010 at a salary of $165,000 to oversee Bethlehem schools. He and other BASD administrators took a pay freeze this year. 

* Richard Sniscak, who is working on his doctorate, is newly hired at a salary of $152,000 as superintendent of Parkland schools. The district’s administrators took a pay freeze this year.

* Thomas Seidenberger, Ph.D., who is in the last year of a five-year contract as head of East Penn’s district, makes $163,415. He and other district administrators took a pay freeze this year.

What mainly sets McGinley's contract apart are two provisions:

·  McGinley gets automatic pay raises, the others don't. Built into her contract are 3 percent automatic annual raises, with the possibility of another 2 percent merit raise.  In the wake of steep budget cuts, McGinley didn’t take the automatic raise this year.   

· McGinley is guaranteed a job if she loses the superintendent's job, the others are not. Her contract says if she’s not rehired as superintendent at the end of her contract, the board must offer her another administrative position.

 Asked about those provisions, Tom Templeton of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, said it's not uncommon for superintendents’ contracts to have raises spelled out in a contract or for contracts to take a hybrid approach of a small automatic raise with the option that the board can add a merit raise. 

Templeton said he hadn't seen another contract with a provision requiring the board to give a superintendent another job should it decide not to renew her contract. But, he said, it wasn't "necessarily inappropriate" when someone rises through the ranks at a school district, as McGinley has.  

But Easton resident and blogger Noel Jones, who has been critical of McGinley, argued that the district shouldn’t be required to give McGinley another job.

"I don’t know of any job in the world [in which] if you get fired for doing a bad job, you get another job automatically," Jones said. "What if there isn't an administrative position available? Does that mean we as taxpayers are required to create one for her?"

Jones was also dubious of automatic raises. "Even if other superintendents in the region around us have similar contracts, it doesn’t mean it’s not a bad idea,” Jones said. “It just means it’s a bad idea that runs rampant."

She said she and others were unhappy that Easton’s board failed to cap the amount of tuition it would reimburse McGinley for getting her doctorate so the district had to pay nearly $110,000 for the cost of University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school. 

E-mail and phone messages to Easton Area School Board President Kerry Myers seeking comment were not returned.

Each of the four superintendents' contracts had some differences in benefits offered. Sniscak's benefits were spelled out in detail while others were largely assigned benefits provided to other administrators in their districts. For example, Sniscak is to be compensated for unused sick days while Seidenberger’s contract specifies that he will not be paid for any unused sick days upon his retirement. 

What if a board wants to fire its superintendent?

The Pennsylvania Public School Code says a superintendent can be removed before the end of a contract for reasons of  “neglect of duty, incompetency, intemperance or immorality.” The Code says a board seeking to fire a superintendent must follow due process, including holding a hearing.  

Roy’s contract is more specific, allowing the BASD superintendent to be fired for "two consecutive annual evaluations at below satisfactory performance…" or a "violation of any of the school laws of this Commonwealth."

McGinley’s contract says the board shall not "arbitrarily or capriciously call for her dismissal” and spells out her rights if the board does try to fire her. 

Firing a superintendent can be a lengthy and expensive process, as Saucon Valley found out during the mid-1990s when its school board was sued for firing Superintendent Jayne Coover,  for what the board majority claimed was politicking on school grounds.  

The resulting legal fight between Coover and the district cost more than $350,000 and lasted about 20 months, according to The Morning Call. After losing in court, the board eventually bought out her contract for almost $224,000. 

McGinley’s contract could become more of an issue after the November elections as seven of the nine school board seats are up for grabs. Among the candidates are some who have been critical of her tenure.