BREWER, Maine — Those who retire from the Brewer School Department get the benefit of their unused sick days, and the same will be true for outgoing Superintendent Daniel Lee.
“I get 34 sick days,” Lee explained Thursday. “We had to budget for that because I’m retiring this year. It’s just like we would do if a teacher retires … or like when [former athletic director] Dennis Kiah retired.”
City Councilor Larry Doughty posted a blog item that said, “The school committee gave Dr. Lee [a] 15.7 percent increase in his salary. This is an increase of $17,093. A massive increase.”
The school superintendent said his salary did increase, but only slightly, for fiscal year 2012-13. “Last year, it was $109,087 and this year it’s $110,180,” said Lee, who is scheduled to retire in June 2013.
Doughty got his figures from the school department’s budget, but “Mr. Doughty never called us to ask about this,” Lee said. “He never called to check the facts. He assumed that it was a raise — erroneously assumed.”
Doughty’s blog item also mentioned the school department’s business manager, Gretchen Gardner. She was given a raise after taking on additional responsibilities, Lee said, noting that her salary was never adjusted when she went from financial director to business manager a few years ago.
“She is taking over the operations of food service, maintenance, custodians — the business side — and she’s running all that,” the superintendent said. “We brought her salary in line with other business managers in the state who do similar work.”
So this story is here to refute a blog post that probably never would have seen the light of day? What a joke! I don’t find it a news story to report that a public official is operating within his contracted rights. Would this story not be better suited for an opinion piece as to if public education employees as a whole should be able to cash out sick days? Perhaps Larry Doughty and the BDN just need to hug it out. From a recent Larry Doughty blog post:
Now come on folks, should we be surprised at what the Bangor Daily News does? Very supportive of anything, and everybody that opposes what Governor LePage is attempting to do for Maine. He really gets it, however, he gets little ,if any support from the NEWS. One poster hear mentions people dropping their subscriptions to the NEWS. I know of a few that dropped theirs here in the Brewer area, when I was kicked off the NEWS’ web pages. Can you believe it? Personal I’m thinking. It’s been since last August, and I’m proud to be wearing the badge of honor, frankly.
Kicked off the BDN web pages? Does he mean contributing to these forums? I’ve noticed his absence. He must have broken the rules to often.
Poor Larry, can’t catch a break.
That is not that much money compared to other industries, although with that pay now I would think Brewer should start expecting the Business Manager to work full-time.
Paying for unused sick upon retirement is common in industry and business. However, most of those have gone to personal time which tends not to be cumulative from year to year.
Sick days are available when you are sick. If you are not sick, you should not be paid for those days.
Maybe they could give his sick days to the janitors that lost thier jobs at Brewer, beleive me these folks were literally sick from losing thier lively hood and most were not make as much as Mr Lee’s life time retirement pay and benefits ?
Do any of the custodians have a PHD? Doctor Lee has at least 8 years of college invested in his career which has benefited thousands of our children. Don’t get me wrong- everyone is important in the schools system, but Dr. Lee’s compensation has nothing to do with the Janitor’s pay plan or retirement benefits. I think if you check you’ll find that Brewer’s top education official is paid a salary that is not out of line with other similar school systems.
The range of supt salaries (not including benefits) across the state is from $135K Betsy Webb/Bangor to $0 for some of the smaller communities ie: Grand Isle. How does Brewer’s student population compare vs. supt. salary?
I looked at the same survey as you. It’s not all about population-Brewer competes for students against some high quality high schools such as Bapst. Quality counts and Dan Lee has done one heck of a job. I should know- my daughter went through the Brewer system and now has Doctor in front of her name thanks to great teachers and administration people.
I’ll bet good money that thousands of Brewer Students know who their janitor is or was by name, and janitors have conversations every day with thousands of students?
Further, 99 % of students, have NO idea what a superintendent is let alone what their name is and never have had a single conversation with a
superintendent in their entire school career ?
Bottom line: a janitor has had more real and positive effects on thousands of students in school than ANY
superintendent in any school system. In fact, you can correlate sick days for students and staff to a clean school no what a
superintendent does or doesn’t do.
Janitors are the best value per dollars paid to direct student outcomes than most of us realize?
The superintendent manages the principals in the system. The principals mange the teachers who actually teach our children. Janitors are valuable as well.
$110K for a small school dept is excessive, taxpayers were asleep at the wheel and this what we get!
It’s good that someone, even if it is Larry, is paying attention. Wouldn’t Dr. Lee and Ms. Gardner be in charge of creating this budget? I would like to be able to give myself a big fat raise too if I was the one punching in the numbers!
It still gets voted on by the town I believe.
There’s nothing wrong with paying attention. However-if Mr. Doughty or other elected officials had a problem with Doctor Lee’s contract-they should have handled it before he signed it-not after.
Every time Larry opens his mouth or uses his keyboard all I can think of is TERM LIMITS for Brewer city counselors. He was the genius behind the ridiculous new requirement that the next head of Brewer Schools must reside in the city after 3 years. The Governor doesn’t even have to live in the Blaine House or Augusta. The pool of candidates will be shallow just like the one that someone else came from.