Paying your superintendent

In an article by the Houston Chronicle's Ericka Mellon, the issue of compensation for the HISD superintendent was discussed. I collected another 10 seconds on my cumulative fifteen minutes of fame, and wanted to clarify a few points.

• First, I said I'd be willing to "spot him the driver" in our 7th largest school district. Yes, I pay taxes too. But I grew up in NJ, and spent four years going to high school in Manhattan, which was only possible because of mass transit. I spent the travel time doing homework, reading, goofing with friends, or just chilling out. Dr. Saavedra probably travels a lot of miles in our huge sprawling city; any time he can prep for a meeting, work on a proposal or policy, etc. is bonus time to us, I think. Honestly, we should make Metro pay for the driver; it's really a shame we don't have a decent mass transit system in the fourth largest US city. I guess we can thank Tom DeLay for that.
• One of my biggest concerns is that the compensation package is almost strictly accretive. The next candidate isn't going to come in and say "I'll take less than my predecessor"; the trend is to ask for all that, and more. I think the Board should spend a little time discussing the package up front, then look for supers who are willing to work within those boundaries. If we need to shave back compensation or perks, we should take advantage of this opportunity to do so.
• I also said the Board should consider putting a cap on the compensated vacation/personal days. That's pretty normal for us plebes, who at best can carry a single year's worth of days over to next year. As an employer, you don't want your employees working for two years then taking a long vacation in the middle of your project the next year (though of course that'd be so nice). You also don't want to get socked with a big payout at termination, which is what we're seeing now with Dr. Saavedra. A cap just makes sense; use it or lose it.
• The salary part of the compensation doesn't faze me much. It's a big job, and a big district. Can we get equally qualified personnel to run it for less? I don't know. The bonus, on the other hand, is obscene; an $80,000 bonus is two average teacher salaries (I think). Wouldn't we be better served having the extra teacher(s)? Since it's tied (in large part?) to the performance on standardized tests, it aligns his compensation with what I consider to be a flawed metric. It also is of probably dubious value; at the end of the day it's the teachers and principals who are making that happen, not him.

In the end, as a taxpayer, I'd like to see us pay the super less if we can. As a citizen and parent of HISD students, I want a person in the job who can make sure the system works for our children. It's the Board's job to try to make those both happen, and I wish them luck.