Teachers and administrators in the South Orange-Maplewood School District make more than the statewide average, but salaries are dropping statewide due to increased retirements and the hiring of new teachers at lower salaries, according to a report by NJ Spotlight.
See the report and an interactive map with school district salaries reported for the school year 2013-14 (you’ll notice that Brian Osborne is listed as superintendent at a salary of $220,001) here.
The average South Orange-Maplewood base salary for teachers/non-administrators was $72,252 compared to a $68,302 statewide average.South Orange-Maplewood administrators earned an average $127,943 base salary (compared to $117,181 statewide). South Orange-Maplewood salaries were comparable to nearby districts, with both teachers and administrators in Millburn and Livingston earning higher base salaries; teachers in Chatham averaged a lower base ($69,708), but administrators averaged higher ($134,932).
The report noted that salaries are dropping in districts statewide due to a number of factors driving retirements.
From the NJ Spotlight report:
Teachers and other non-administrative professional staff received a base salary on average of $68,302 in 2013-14 [statewide], a fraction of a percent less than in the prior year, an NJ Spotlight analysis of salary data for more than 140,000 professional school employees found.
The average salary for administrators [statewide] dropped by about the same amount, to $117,181.
Mirroring the salary drops were declines in the number of years the average teacher and administrator had worked — to 11.8 years for teachers and 17 years for administrators.
That appears to reflect, at least in part, a continuing trend of staff retirements due both to the aging of school staff and to the continual phasing-in of higher health-benefit contributions that teachers are required to make as a result of the contentious pension and health benefits reform law signed by Gov. Chris Christie with cooperation from Democratic leaders in both houses of the Legislature.
“Employee contributions to health coverage by the 2011 employee health benefit reform law have provided some relief to districts in the area of compensation,” said Frank Belluscio, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association.
Read the full report here.
