Princeton Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane.
By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane will get a pay hike and be eligible to earn merit bonuses pushing his annual compensation past $200,000, in a new five-year contract the school board will vote on later this month.
Cochrane is benefiting from recent changes to state regulations controlling the pay of chief school administrators — tying their pay to the enrollment of their districts. Based on the old rules, Cochrane’s salary was capped at $165,000, but he received a $2,500 stipend because the district has a high school, and earned performance based merit pay.
The salary cap, something the Christie administration implemented in 2011, has been criticized for driving talent out of the state. Cochrane’s predecessor, Judith A. Wilson, left the district at the end of 2013, before she would have had to take a pay cut, from the $225,000 she was making had she wanted to continue working in Princeton past her contract.
But new rules that took effect in May raised the top pay to $191,584, increased the stipend to $5,000 and allowed superintendents to get 2-percent annual raises as part of a new contract for staying with their districts. Cochrane also can earn merit pay of around $30,000 per year for meeting district goals. If so, that would put his total compensation to around what Wilson was earning when she left four years ago.
The deal will keep Cochrane, 57, running the school system that he has been in charge of since 2014. The deal is retroactive to July 1.
“I’m tremendously excited to be in Princeton at this particular juncture,” Cochrane said Thursday. “We’re doing transformative work, and I’m privileged to be a part of it and look forward to continuing.”
The school board is due to vote on Cochrane’s contract Sept. 26.
School board president Patrick Sullivan said Thursday that under the old salary cap, Cochrane “was making less than some principals.”
“We always thought that it was unfair that he was limited to that,” Sullivan said. “But he’s done a good job over the last two and a half years. We’re happy to be able to retain him."
