He’ll beat Fariña pay by $100G
INCOMING city Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza will be paid a record $345,000 a year by the city — over $100,000 more than outgoing Chancellor Carmen Fariña made.
The amped-up salary for Carranza, who will come to New York from Houston’s school system, comes after the city had previously — and publicly — promised to pay Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho $353,000 a year.
That’s much heftier than the salary for Fariña, a city Education Department veteran who implemented the mayor’s universal pre-K program at her bargain annual pay rate of $234,500. City officials, in defending the huge pay hike for Carvalho (photo inset), were quick to note Fariña is collecting a $211,000 pension from her career as a teacher.
The city said it based Carranza’s salary on what he made running Houston’s schools, in a similar manner as to what it offered Carvalho.
“The chancellor’s salary will be the same as his base pay in Houston,” Mayor de Blasio said.
That comes as a city law enacted under the de Blasio administration bans employers from asking job prospects their salary history — because basing someone’s pay on their last job’s salary can widen the gender gap.
Asked last week about offering to match Carvalho’s pay in the context of the salary history law, de Blasio bristled.
“He asked for a certain level of salary,” de Blasio said. “That was a perfectly fair request.”
The city isn’t barred from considering a salary history if the applicant brings it up, and the pay of both Carranza and Carvalho would be in the public record. But the administration sang a different tune about the use of salary histories back when de Blasio signed the bill.
“By removing questions about an applicant’s previous earnings, the law allows applicants who have been systemically underpaid, particularly women and people of color, to negotiate a salary based on their qualifications and earning potential rather than being measured by their previous salary,” Chirlane McCray, the mayor’s wife, said then.