New Brunswick Schools Superintendent Pulls in Salary of $230,000 Under Governor's Superintendent Salary Cap

In a year when Gov. Chris Christie imposed new limits on school superintendents’ salaries, almost a third of those positions changed hands in New Jersey. Some superintendents retired rather than accept lower pay. Others took jobs out of state or moved into the private sector.

But New Brunswick doesn’t have to start looking for a new superintendent anytime soon. In 2010, just before Christie announced his plans for the salary cap, city education officials renegotiated their contract with Superintendent Richard Kaplan, providing him a five-year extension until June 30, 2015.

Under the new contract, Kaplan makes $230,000 per year. That’s $52,500 more than what New Brunswick will be able to pay its next superintendent under Christie’s cap. And it’s also $52,500 more than what the district could have paid Kaplan if city education officials waited until the previous contract expired in June 2011 to sign him to a new deal.

“At the time, it seemed a great deal,’’ Mayor Jim Cahill said, explaining that Kaplan, a veteran educator, had agreed to take a flat salary over the duration of the contract as well as some benefits reductions.

“Even with the cap, it’s still a decent deal,’’ Cahill said.

Kaplan, 62, has been New Brunswick’s superintendent since 2004. Prior to that, he served in the same position in Boonton and Eatontown and had been an assistant state education commissioner during former Gov. Tom Kean’s administration. He started his career as a teacher.

“I don’t know of a better superintendent in the state,’’ Cahill said. “He brings a great deal of experience to New Brunswick. We get the benefit of his classroom experience, his administrative experience and his regulatory experience.’’

Under Christie’s cap, which went into effect in February 2011, the pay limit for superintendents in districts the size of New Brunswick – between 6,501 and 10,000 students – is $175,000. On top of that, superintendents can get an extra $2,500 if there’s a high school in the district.

The Christie administration has said the cap would produce $9.8 million in potential savings because 70 percent of superintendents in place at the time had salaries above the limit.

“In these hard economic times, superintendent salaries in New Jersey are costing taxpayers more than $100 million per year,’’ the Christie administration said in a press release. “New Jerseyans are required to devote limited tax dollars to administrator salaries, even while no direct link exists between high pay for superintendents and high test scores for students.’’ 

The cap, however, only comes into play once the current contract for a superintendent expires.

Kaplan said he approached New Brunswick education officials about renegotiating his contract in 2010. The revised agreement was approved by the Middlesex County Office of Education on July 8, 2010, according to documents provided by New Brunswick Public Schools.

One week later, Christie unveiled his plans to limit superintendent salaries, an initiative that had been anticipated for several months.

“I didn’t know what the governor’s numbers were going to be,’’ said Kaplan, who was Middlesex County’s highest paid superintendent in 2010 according to state statistics. “The contract was done before that came out.”

In some instances, the Christie administration has challenged local schools that the state feels tried to circumvent the salary cap. But there has been no criticism from Trenton on New Brunswick’s decision to renegotiate its deal with Kaplan.

“As for the salary, this superintendent has a higher salary because it was signed pre-cap,’’ said state Department of Education spokesman Justin Barra. “The law allows superintendents with existing contracts in place to fulfill those contracts. However, future contracts would need to take place in the confines of the cap.”

Some state education lobbying groups have questioned the wisdom of Christie’s cap, arguing that it puts New Jersey school districts at a competitive disadvantage in hiring the most qualified superintendents. They say it jeopardizes the quality of education in the state in an effort to save tens of thousands of dollars in school budgets that often total more than $100 million.

“Hiring the superintendent is hands-down the most important personnel decision that a board will make,’’ said Mike Yaple, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association.

The salary limit, Yaple said, restricts local officials to hire the best possible person to run their school districts.

It was Yaple’s group’s research that determined that 29 percent of New Jersey’s 589 school districts hired new superintendents during the 2010-11 academic year. That’s the highest percentage of superintendent turnover since the association began tracking that information 10 years ago.

The school board association often works with local districts in their search for candidates to fill superintendents’ job. Yaple said his group’s staff members have noticed in the aftermath of the salary cap that the amount of experience of people applying for superintendents’ jobs has gone down.

Richard Bozza, director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, said the salary cap infringes on local education officials’ role of hiring their superintendents. Bozza said his group has about five lawsuits pending on behalf of superintendents questioning the legitimacy of certain aspects of the salary limit.

Kaplan said he understood the need to cost school expenses and saw both pros and cons in the salary cap.

“I guess it’s not such a bad thing for the state of New Jersey,’’’ he said.

But Kaplan warned that experienced superintendents might be going elsewhere. On the same day that New Brunswick Patch interviewed him, Kaplan said he received a recruiting letter from a school district in Duchess County, NY offering a minimum salary of $200,000.

“They’re sending this all over, not just to me,’’ Kaplan said. “I wonder sometimes if we might be losing talent.’’

Kaplan said he has no plans to take another job. When his current contract expires in 2015, he expects to retire – a decision he said has nothing to do with the salary cap.

“It’s time to slow down,’’ he said.

Kaplan’s contract says he has accumulated $29,293.50 worth of unused sick days, for which he will be reimbursed when he retires. That number certainly doesn’t put Kaplan anywhere near the top among New Jersey school administrators: in some cases, they receive well more than $100,000 for accumulated time when they retire.

The contract allots Kaplan 30 vacation days, 12 sick days and three personal days per year. It also says the school board would pay his membership fees for various professional organizations, “all reasonable expenses incurred for sustenance and travel within the district in the performance of his duties,’’ and a $5,400 tax-deferred annuity.

The contract says Kaplan must contribute 1.5 percent of his $230,000 salary – which amounts to $3,450 – to his health insurance.

None of New Brunswick’s five board of education members – Benito Ortiz, Edwin Gutierrez, John Krenos, Dale Caldwell, Patricia Sadowski, Emra Seawood and Edward Spencer – responded to an email seeking their comments on Kaplan’s contract.

Cahill acknowledged some folks might think a $230,000 salary excessive.

“But in the superintendents’ world, these numbers were not particularly high for someone with the experience and track record of Richard Kaplan,’’ the mayor said.