The Scarsdale School District, which includes Scarsdale HS (above), has the highest-paid teachers on average in suburban New York. (
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ALBANY — It’s good work if you can get it.
New York’s 50 highest-paid suburban school-district employees pulled in more than $260,000 apiece in the last school year — with two Long Island superintendents cracking the half-million-dollar mark.
Teachers notched six-figure salaries on average in the tony Westchester districts of Scarsdale, Bronxville and Byram Hills and in Jericho, LI, in 2011-12, according to a compilation of data by an arm of the Manhattan Institute.
Average pay for all school employees was actually dragged down by numerous substitute teachers and part-timers whose salaries came to only a few thousand dollars a year — although big pay packages to some retirees partially offset that.
Taxpayers ponied up more than twice as much to pay the $73,949 average Long Island school district employee salary than for the typical $36,394 employee in upstate’s Mohawk Valley west of Albany, according to the findings posted at SeeThrough.org.
The conservative think tank found that salaries for employees ranging from administrators and teachers to custodians, aides and bus drivers continued rising on Long Island and in six other regions over the past four recession-racked years while Mohawk Valley and Capital Region schools actually cut pay.
“Long Island and the Mid-Hudson are up, up, up four years straight,” noted Tim Hoefer, director of the Manhattan Institute’s Empire Center for New York State Policy. “These numbers just seem too high when you look at all these localities that are struggling financially. So where’s the breaking point?”
Rockville Centre Union Free School Superintendent William H. Johnson was top dog at $567,248.
The district noted Johnson’s payout was inflated by granting the 26-year veteran access to up to $300,000 in retirement pay in exchange for four years without raises and concessions, including higher out-of-pocket contributions toward his health insurance.
Syosset Central Schools Superintendent Carole Hankin was second at $506,015. She declined comment through a spokeswoman.
Scarsdale had the highest average teacher pay at $115,659.
New York City pays its teachers $73,751 on average, while Big Apple Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott makes $212,614 a year.
Hoefer saw one hopeful sign in the suburban numbers.
The year before last, 30 employees cracked the $300,000 mark, while only 15 did in 2011-12.
“Does this show some restraint in administrators’ salaries? Maybe,” he said.
“Or maybe fewer people retired [and took big lump-sum payouts] last year than the previous year.”
Gov. Cuomo approved a property-tax cap last year after complaining about the salaries of school superintendents.
“We have $500,000 school superintendents. We can’t pay those kind of salaries,” said Cuomo, whose salary is $179,000. “Why they get paid more than the governor of the state I really don’t understand.”
Additional reporting by Yoav Gonen