By ALLISSA KLINE
akline@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1612

The already difficult task of recruiting and hiring superintendents to lead public school districts could become doubly challenging under a plan offered by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reduce and cap superintendent salaries, according to school officials and search consultants in Western New York

The state may save $15 million by imposing an enrollment-based tiered salary structure, but the lasting impact would undermine the power of locally elected school boards, as well as districts' efforts to hire and retain the best leadership they can attract, they say.

Donald Ogilvie, district superintendent at Erie 1 BOCES, manages the search process for districts that don't hire private search firms or do it on their own. He's currently leading the search for the next Williamsville Central superintendent, one of at least 10 open superintendencies in Western New York right now. The job salary advertised is a minimum of $200,000, which exceeds the governor's cap by $25,000.

"The long-term costs of depriving individual districts of the leadership they want and deserve are incalculable when we consider the fiscal challenges and aggressive reforms to improve student performance," Ogilvie said. "(The proposal) is widely viewed as a disincentive for leaders to seek and retain positions. The governor is working around the margins of an enormous problem by focusing on a small subset of public employees, and that subset is the leadership we need."

That "enormous problem" to which Ogilvie refers is the state's estimated $10 billion budget deficit and the impact it will have on state aid for public education. Cuomo's proposed budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year, which begins April 1, calls for a $1.5 billion reduction in aid for 700 school districts that may be forced to make cuts in personnel to deal with funding losses.

Cuomo's planned cap on superintendent salaries, announced Feb. 28, was immediately panned by superintendents and school board members across the state who said it would reduce the number of job candidates for such positions and turn off school administrators who normally would climb the ranks to the superintendency. Based on student population, the caps would range from $125,000 for schools with 250 or fewer students to $175,000 for schools with 6,501 or more students.

The pay for many local superintendents currently falls under the proposed caps, but districts such as Buffalo, Williamsville and Clarence would have to reduce salaries.

If enacted by the state Legislature, the cap would further reduce the number of qualified candidates showing interest in superintendent openings, said Grand Island Central School District superintendent Robert Christmann. He serves as president of the state Council of School Superintendents and was in Albany last week for a superintendents conference when the salary cap was announced.

Hundreds of applications used to flow in for vacancies, but today 15 applications is a solid response, Christmann said. Those who would make good candidates often don't want to deal with the magnitude of responsibilities - including the related politics and bureacracy - of a superintendency, he said, and the proposed cap would add to the disinterest.

"If I'm an assistant superintendent without a salary cap, I'd have to ask myself, ‘Why do I want to move up?' "' Christmann said.

The governor's proposal indicates local communities could vote to override specific caps, but superintendent search consultant Vincent Coppola doesn't think that's realistic.

"Good luck on that," said Coppola, who's heading up superintendent searches for Springville-Griffith Institute and Allegany-Limestone districts. "Who's going to stand in line as a taxpayer to vote for a higher salary for a school superintendent, given the anger people have over losing their jobs and homes?"

For some, the idea of capping salaries is a diversion from other public education issues in a cash-strapped state. Jane Burzynski, executive director of the Erie County Association of School Boards, called the proposal a "sparkler" that's drawing attention away from the possible $1.5 billion state aid reduction.

"My concern is that it's becoming a side show that diverts attention ... from what would be the largest state aid cut in the state's history," Burzynski said. "That doesn't include the loss of federal funding, so now we're looking at $2.8 billion. It's money that could be gone and, when you have a loss of that magnitude, obviously $15 million is a very small piece."

Some districts seeking new superintendents may have to revise the advertised salary for the positions. Or they may see less interest from school administrators in other states who don't want to deal with salary caps. A salary range for the available Clarence Central superintendency has not been released, but outgoing school chief Thomas Coseo, a district employee for 20 years, makes $213,200. That's $48,200 above Cuomo's cap for districts enrolling 3,001 to 6,500 students.

"We're looking to do a nationwide search ... and we may see little out-of-state interest in our position, which is unfortunate," school board president Michael Lex said. "The governor's proposal has really vilified superintendents. What we'd save isn't all that big in the total scheme of things. The real problem is that teachers' salaries have escalated a great deal ... and unfortunately there hasn't been a corresponding change in the pension system."

There's been talk of freezing public-employee salaries, including teachers, but so far nothing concrete has been proposed by the governor. A local leader for New York State United Teachers, one of the most powerful unions in the state with 600,000 members, hopes Cuomo institutes "shared sacrifices" so that one segment of workers isn't the only group affected by changes in salaries and benefits.

"Is there going to be sacrifice? Certainly," said NYSUT regional staff director Michael Preskop. "But it has to be shared sacrifices. It can't just be on the backs on certain people."

Those sentiments are shared by Jeffrey Bowen, who's retiring as superintendent of Yorkshire-Pioneer Central School District in June, and East Aurora Union Free School Board President Daniel Brunson, whose district hopes to name a permanent district leader sometime this year. Both say there should be changes in collective-bargaining agreements so that pension, health care and other costs to the state decrease.

"I'm not opposed to what (Cuomo) is trying to do and, frankly, I'm not going to whine about the revenue because the state has to live within its means," Brunson said. "I just want him to do it in an equitable and fair way so that it doesn't hit one element of society more than others."