Eric Hartley: Hard times, but not at school board

With everything seeming pricier these days - gas for the car, electricity for the house and heck, even this newspaper if you bought it on the rack - a raise of, say, $20,000 or $30,000 over the past two years sure would have come in handy.

Well, if you've got a senior position in the county school system, you might be in luck.

More than 100 school employees received raises of $18,000 or more over the past two fiscal years, with the top salary bump being $34,322.

Overall, the number of six-figure jobs in the system has skyrocketed from 213 to 450 since The Capital did a similar story last year.

True, $100,000 is an arbitrary number chosen because it's nice and round. It doesn't tell you everything about how county schools are spending taxpayer money on 8,800 employees, about 5 percent of whom are paid that much.

But it's startling that the number of people in that salary bracket has more than doubled at a time so many people are struggling. It only feeds the perception - which school officials say is unfounded - that the bureaucracy on Riva Road is bloated.

In the real world, people don't get raises in bad times. Companies are laying people off; people are losing their homes.

We're told times are tight in the schools, too; Superintendent Kevin Maxwell says schools have been underfunded the past few years by tens of millions of dollars. If money is so desperately needed in classrooms, wouldn't you think the top brass would be holding the line on their own salaries?

As government officials usually do when asked about large executive salaries, schools officials explain the hikes as market-driven increases necessary to keep and attract good educators. If other counties are paying more, they say, Anne Arundel has to as well.

Bob Mosier, the school system's public information officer, said many of those getting big raises are covered under new "performance pay" systems that reward people for merit, not simply years on the job. And he said everyone, even nonclassroom employees, contributes in the end to student success.

"Teachers, principals and others who work in classrooms directly with students cannot do it alone," he said.

No one objects to paying more for quality teachers, and it's true that other school systems pay comparable salaries to top staff. But the "everyone else is doing it" argument probably doesn't engender much sympathy from your average working stiff.

To be sure, many of the top people at school headquarters on Riva Road started as teachers before working their way up, work long hours and care deeply about their jobs. No one is suggesting they're in it for the money. The problem isn't them; it's the system.

Some of those getting raises have taken on new jobs that carry more responsibility, so salary increases are justified. But "directors of school performance" Dawn Lucarelli and Christopher Truffer, who were already making just over $100,000, got 33 percent raises and now make $134,280 each.

What the heck? It's fun to spend other people's money.

Others near the top of the raise list have not changed jobs, like Mr. Mosier, whose salary has gone from $97,968 to $123,364, a raise of more than 25 percent in less than two years on the job. He said he earned his raise, though.

"Like others across the system, our office is doing more with fewer people, increasing the workload and responsibilities but getting the job accomplished with lower cost," Mr. Mosier wrote in an e-mail.

Those who defend big salaries for top government officials are fond of comparing their jobs with running a big business. After all, no one would bat an eye at executives in a billion-dollar corporation being paid $150,000 to $200,000, and the county and school system have budgets around $1 billion.

But they're not corporations; they're public entities. These people are working for the taxpayers.

Other local governments had much less dramatic salary increases. Neither the city of Annapolis nor county government had any six-figure workers get a raise as high as 20 percent, while scores did in the school system.

The biggest raise among top county officials was $12,852, which wouldn't even make the top 100 in the schools.

School officials noted that 77 percent of employees making six figures are union-represented, almost all of them principals whose unions have negotiated major raises. But that means close to a quarter, or about 100 people, are nonunion people whose raises aren't mandated.

If you're public servants doing it all for the kids, and times are tough, can't you trudge along on your $97,000 or $109,000? You might have earned that raise, by some calculations, but do you need it now?

Don't look to the school board, which is supposed to oversee the superintendent, to put any check on spending. When the board handed Dr. Maxwell a $6,000 bonus last year, on top of his then-$231,000 salary, board President Tricia Johnson told him: "Personally, I would love to give you a bigger bonus."

No, that $6,000 bonus or a few $30,000 raises don't mean much in a budget nearing $1 billion. But they do send quite a message to the average taxpayer: You might be struggling, but over here, things seem just fine.