Editor’s note: The salaries stated in this letter have not been verified by this paper.
Why is it good that the SMUSD parcel tax hike bill lost?
Superintendent Tim Cuneo takes home $235,000 a year, plus free housing and car and health care, for a total of almost $300,000 a year.
Chief Academic officer Sally Chou earns over $157,00 a year plus tens of thousands in benefits.
Assistant Superintendant Janece Maez makes $149,00 a year plus bennies.
Director of Fiscal Services Wang Ho makes $147,750 plus bennies while Mike Mathews in Human Resources makes $145,384 plus bennies.
In short, the 64 top earning employees of SMUSD make over $100,000 a year for a total of $7 million, plus benefits worth hundreds of thousands more.
What if these well-heeled administrators and tenured teachers were willing to take a 20 percent salary cut?
That in itself would free up close to $1.5 million tax dollars, and the gesture would probably help get their next bill passed.
Moreover, earning less money will lower the top earners state and federal taxes, and they won’t be faced with the full brunt of the sacrifice.
Almost everybody has had to cut back their personal lives but not the ones with their hands stretched out, these top earners who live off our school system and tax dollars.
My opinion is that they need a new attitude.
Let’s see them sacrifice the way they live the way the rest of us have before asking for yet another tax increase.
Jon Gindick