PRINCETON: Many school district employee salaries top $100,000

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Nearly 110 employees of the Princeton school district are due to earn more than $100,000 in the next school year, led by high school principal Gary Snyder’s salary of just more than $190,000.
Mr. Snyder’s total compensation will hit $194,056 because he will earn an extra $3,800 in longevity, according to district records. He has worked at the high school since 2003, but is now on leave for the remainder of the school year.
Trailing him is Johnson Park Elementary School principal Robert Ginsburg, with a total compensation of $192,798, those records showed.
Both men are due to earn more than Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane, whose $167,500 salary is capped based on a state law that ties the salaries of school chiefs with the enrollment of their districts. Mr. Cochrane’s contract with the district, however, allows him to earn merit pay if he meets goals that the school board sets.
Their salary information and that of all other district employees were released Tuesday in the information packet for that night’s school board meeting, where officials voted to reappoint staff for the 2016-17 school year. In all, there are 109 employees set to make in excess of $100,000, spread through the district from teachers to administrators.
Some of the high earners, like Mr. Snyder and Mr. Ginsburg, get longevity pay that boosts their total compensation by as little as an extra $800 to as much as $7,000 in the case of Priscilla Russell, the district supervisor of world languages, ESL and bilingual.
District and school board officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
The majority of employees who make more than $100,000 are on the teaching staff, with 77 of them earning six figures, including teachers union president Joanne Ryan, a second-grade teacher at Littlebrook Elementary School, at $106,145.
Labor costs are the biggest expense the district faces, in a community with high property taxes where the schools account for half of the tax bill.
In the $90.8 million school budget approved last month, employee salaries will account for little more than half of all school district spending in 2016-17. Salaries are due to reach $46.8 million, not including employee health benefits costs.