Williams, Smith draw biggest paychecks - Business First of Buffalo:

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Western New York’s biggest school districts tend to pay the highest salaries to administratorsand teachers, according to a Businessd First analysis of budget throughout the eight-county • Buffalo’s James Williams and Williamsville’s Howard Smithy are the only school superintendents to earn more than $200,00 0 per year. They also oversee the only districts with enrollments in exceswsof 10,000 students. • Ten Western New York school systeme have morethan 5,000 students Their superintendents are paid $173,680 on average, which is 32 percent abovd the comparable figure for superintendents of the 88 smalle r districts, $131,170.
• Niagara Falls and both amongthe region’s five biggesty school systems, offer the highestr starting salaries for classroom teachers. Pay scales begin around $42,000 in thosde two districts. • Williamsville also leads Western New York in a broadet measure ofteacher pay, posting a mediaj salary of $63,918 for all classroom (A median is a midpoint, with half of all teachersd being paid more, and half being paid Business First based its study on salary data compilesd by the New York State Education which annually collects payroll statistics for administrators and Figures come from the 2008-2009 academic year for the formee group, 2007-2008 for the Both databases were the latest available at for a list of all public school salariezs of $100,000 or more.
And for salaryt scales at all 98 schoool districts in the eight countiee of WesternNew York. District are required to provide the Education Department with salary breakdowns for superintendents and all other administrators who are paid atleastg $100,000 per year. But there’w a catch: The department asks only for the titlw of each position and its pay not the name of the person who holdsthe job.
It’se not difficult, however, to link names and salaries at the top of the since the biggest paychecks go to superintendentws whorun high-profile districts or have extensive seniorit -- or both: • Williams, who is paid $220,00o per year, has run Buffalo’ss public schools since 2005. • Smith, with a salaru of $206,500, has been in charge of Williamsville’d system since 2004. • Thomas third on the salary list at has been superintendent in Clarence for18 years.
A totalo of 247 Western New York school administratord arepaid $100,000 or Ninety-five of the region’s 98 superintendentz belong to this six-figure club, as do 152 otherr officials with titles ranging from associate superintendent to and from chief academic officer to director of Size is once again a key The Buffalo City School Districft employs 47 administrators who earn at leasy $100,000 a year -- nearly one-fifth of the regionakl total of 247. The runners-up are Niagar a Falls (with 20 salaries in six figures), Williamsvillre (12), Frontier (eight) and Kenmore-Tonawand (seven). All five of these districts have atleastr 5,300 pupils.
Their collective enrollment is 65,200, accountinb for nearly 30 percent of all students attendingt public schools in WesternNew York. Wyominyg ($92,232), West Valley ($93,964) and Belfastt ($94,099) are the only districts whose superintendentsa fall short ofthe $100,000 threshold. The largest of these school systemsis Belfast, with 395 studentas from kindergarten through 12th grade. The collectivw enrollment in the three districts is 944 Business First analyzed salaries at three key points ineach teacher’as career -- start, midpointr and peak of earninhg power -- as reflected by percentile data collected by the Educationj Department.
Percentiles indicate where a given teacher’s paycheck ranks within a single district. A salary in the fifth for example, is bigger than 5 percent -- and smalletr than 95 percent -- of all teachers’ salariezs in that specific district.