Pennsylvania's Department of Education added fiscal data Wednesday to its School Performance Profile website, including salaries for school administrators and teachers across the state.
Most school and government officials welcomed the change, but some complained that the figures are outdated because they're from fiscal year 2013, which ended 18 months ago. The figures are for traditional public schools, charter and cyber charter schools, and career and technology centers.
“I don't think any individual in the public or private sector is crazy about having their salary information online, but most of our members realize that they are public employees,” said Wythe Keever, spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Education Association.
The Department of Education already had much of the information online, but it was scattered on its website and often hard to find. The department provided information that wasn't posted on the website — including teachers' salaries — upon request, spokesman Tim Eller said.
In addition to salary data for administrators and teachers, information at paschoolperformance.org details each district's spending, sources of funding and average per-pupil costs. Pennsylvania's public schools spend $27.6 billion a year.
“When you're a public employee, pretty much everything you do is public,” said John D. Wilkinson, superintendent of Belle Vernon Area School District in Westmoreland and Fayette counties. To access the financial data, visitors can use state and county maps to find a school district. Once on a district's page, visitors click “View District Information” and then, on the next page, “View Fiscal Information” to get to the financial data.
Salaries for more than 190,000 administrators are available by clicking on the link “School Personnel Salary Data,” which links to an Excel spreadsheet that contains administrators' and teachers' job titles and years of employment.
Some employees' names appear more than once. Eller said that reflects employees with multiple job responsibilities in their respective districts.
“This actually will mean less work for us,” said Andrew Surloff, assistant superintendent of Leetsdale-based Quaker Valley School District. He noted he expects staff members will receive fewer requests for public information.
“It's all public information. Transparency is the way to go,” said William Henderson, superintendent of Frazier School District in Fayette County.
Some questioned the timeliness of data from the 2013 fiscal year.
In Butler County, two of the three highest-paid employees listed are now retired. The highest-paid employee, Bill Pettigrew, earned $178,252 annually before retiring as Mars superintendent in November 2013. He returned on a temporary basis in October when his successor, James Budzilek, resigned.
“That's not an accurate reflection of a district's standing,” Pettigrew said.
Liz Hayes, Karl Polacek, Craig Smith and Bill Vidonic contributed. Tom Fontaine is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7847 or tfontaine@tribweb.com.
