Were you somewhat stunned by the article in today’s newspaper? The article in the Sunday News looked at the base salaries of school superintendents in Lancaster County.

Minimally, adding a normal slate of benefits to a salary paid to an employee increases employer’s cost of the base pay by 25 – 30%. When the employer’s share of:

• social security tax (For social security, the tax rate is 6.2% each for the employee and employer, according to the IRS.),
• medicare tax (The Medicare tax rate is 1.45% each for the employee and employer. There is no wage base limit for Medicare tax, according to the IRS.),
• state unemployment tax;
• applicable local taxes,
• healthcare contribution,
• and retirement (whether a defined benefit or contributory plan),

a Fortune Magazine suggests, “You make $70k but cost your boss $88.”  Remember in the article, the figures are BASE SALARIES.

We used the spreadsheet referenced in the newspaper article and added a 30% employer’s share to the salaries to get another perspective; we also added a column that looks at the base salary plus the 30% employer’s share and divided that number by the number of students in the district to get another perspective.

Click here to look at these calculations.

So what’s a superintendent’s job? “The Superintendent shall be the chief administrative officer and chief instructional officer of the Board of Education and the School District, and shall be responsible for the execution of all actions of the Board, the administration and operation of the public school system subject to the policies of the Board, and the supervision of all matters pertaining to instruction in all the schools under the direction of the Board.” – SOURCE: PA Code