The St. Vrain Valley school board recently approved a 5 percent pay raise for Superintendent Don Haddad, bumping his annual salary to $273,000.
The agreement also extends his contract to 2021, increases the number of vacation days that he can carry over from 50 to 65 and modifies the evaluation process from an annual review to an ongoing review.
“Dr. Haddad, in my experience, is an exemplary chief executive officer,” said school board President Bob Smith. “He has pursued the mission statement of St. Vrain with the utmost integrity and fidelity. By any measure, the school district is advancing.”
Given Haddad’s performance, Smith said, it’s a “very modest” raise, noting he doesn’t receive bonuses as he would in most other industries. He noted the district is anticipating possible cuts in state funding next year.
“Education doesn’t pay superintendents or teachers what they deserve,” he said.
St. Vrain Valley negotiates its teacher contract in the spring, so raises for teachers for the coming school year haven’t yet been set.
For the current school year, teachers saw an average 4 percent raise and a starting salary of $37,000. The top salary a teacher could earn is $81,950.
Last year, the St. Vrain board gave Haddad a raise of about 4 percent for a salary of $260,125.
When Haddad was promoted to superintendent in 2009, he earned $175,000. He refused pay raises as the state cut school funding.
Four years ago, the school board raised Haddad’s salary to $199,500, a 14 percent increase, followed the next year by a 7.8 percent pay increase.
In 2015, he received a 16 percent pay raise to bring his salary to $250,000.
At the time, school board members noted that an informal salary survey of the state’s eight largest school districts showed that Haddad was underpaid. St. Vrain is the state’s seventh largest district with 32,171 students.
In the neighboring Boulder Valley School District, which is the closest in size to St. Vrain with an enrollment of 31,189, Superintendent Bruce Messinger was hired in 2011 for a salary of $215,000.
This school year, he’s earning $261,654.
He typically receives the same percentage raise as other employee groups.
Amy Bounds: 303-473-1341, boundsa@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/boundsa
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
