City school payroll hike
READING, WRITING and big bucks.
The city’s payments to school workers increased by nearly $159 million for the 2015-16 school year, the Daily News has learned.
A News tally of city payroll data compiled by the Empire Center shows payments to school workers increased to $10.18 billion in 2015-16, up from $10.02 billion the year before.
The money includes payments to teachers, principals, custodians, administrators and more.
The $158.7 million increase is just a 1.57% bump to the Education Department’s massive payroll spending and does not include benefits.
City Education Department officials chalked up the added payroll expense to a head count increase driven by the city’s prekindergarten expansion, among other things.
The public schools added 4,364 staffers for the 2015-16 school year, according to the Independent Budget Office, even as overall enrollment remained steady at roughly 1.1 million students.
School workers also racked up nearly $22 million in overtime in 2015-16, up from just over $19 million the year before.
Education Department spokesman Will Mantell said part of the increase in payroll spending was due to raises for teachers under the 2014 teachers union contract.
The public schools also added significant numbers of special-education staffers, art teachers and guidance counselors, Mantell said.
Mantell said the added staffers help city students get good marks.
“Our investments in public schools are paying off, with pre-K for every 4-year-old, record-high grad rates and record-low dropout rates,” Mantell said.
Two controversial principals who have since left their posts were among the highest-paid school workers in the last school year.
Former Boys and Girls High School Principal Michael Wiltshire earned $221,788, which includes a bonus for heading turnaround efforts. Wiltshire left the Brooklyn school last June while still facing disciplinary action for failing to report allegations of sexual harassment and student theft.
Wiltshire, who was the thirdhighest-paid schools employee in 2015-16, remains on the payroll as principal of Brooklyn’s Medgar Evers College Preparatory School.
Former DeWitt Clinton High School Principal Santiago Taveras earned $198,149 in 2016-16.
Taveras was removed from the Bronx school in November after an investigation found he fudged students’ grades. He remains on as an administrator in the Bronx.
City Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña earned the public school system’s highest salary of $227,737. Fariña, who has worked in city schools for five decades, also draws a state pension of $211,984.