Bonus payments tied to student performance and job choice shot up almost threefold this year for Denver teachers, and administrators in the district’s central offices shared in the windfall.
Forty-five Denver Public Schools executives received $344,565 in bonuses over a 12-month span based on performance evaluations, according to records obtained by The Denver Post.
The executives, whose annual salaries average $106,000, received bonuses that averaged $7,100 over a 12-month period. Most bonuses were paid out of the general fund, but some were supported by private grants.
The average bonus was 6.5 percent of the administrator’s salary.
“We strongly believe in incentive pay,” said Superintendent Tom Boasberg, who refused to accept up to $50,000 in bonuses this year for himself because of the economic pressures facing the district. “What we are trying to do across the scale is spend less money on the base and more in incentives.”
Teachers and principals also have incentive structures that are supported with money outside of the general fund. This year, 3,143 teachers received a total of about $19 million in incentives, and 208 principals and assistant principals received $1.9 million in bonuses.
The teachers’ pay system is funded through a unique-to-Denver $25 million annual tax approved by voters in 2005. Principals’ bonuses are paid with a federal grant.
District officials say the incentives for administrators, such as the chief operating officer and chief academic officer, are already built into the budget. They say that while the administrators do not work directly with students, the payments serve as an incentive to push those who do to be successful.
In many cases, administrators agreed to take less money in base pay with an opportunity to fill that shortfall through incentives, Boasberg said. Those incentives are already factored into the budget.
“For all employees — for teachers, principals and district leaders — it’s the same purpose, to provide incentives for people to take difficult assignments and to reward them for strong performance and to provide financial incentives so that we keep our strongest performers,” Boasberg said.
Their pay still must be high enough to attract the best and the brightest, he said.
“You are competing against the private sector for many of these positions,” he said. “Our folks are earning considerably less than their private counterparts.”
Nevertheless, the formula may be difficult to explain in a struggling economy and when other government agencies are forcing employees to take furloughs. The district is preparing to slice at least $34 million out of its budget over the next two years because of state funding cuts.
The head of DPS’s teachers union questioned the rationale of giving administrators bonuses in a time of budget cuts and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
“If there is no money, there is no money for anyone. End of story,” said Henry Roman, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association — which agreed in September to reopen its three-year contract and reduce the amount its members will get paid this year by 1.65 percent — saving DPS about $5 million.
Teachers will receive a 5 percent average increase in 2009-10, including a 2.5 percent increase to their salary schedule. Still, the administrator bonuses make him bristle.
“That is certainly not easy to understand when people are talking that we don’t have money,” Roman said.
DPS employees in the main office, including the administrators receiving bonuses, will not see increases to their base pay this year.
Other districts give bonuses to administrators if objectives are met.
In Jefferson County Schools, for example, central staff administrators can receive up to 5 percent of “variable compensation” if 80 percent of the district’s 300 targets are met.
But because of the economic troubles, Jeffco this year reduced the amount to 2 percent, said Jeffco Superintendent Cindy Stevenson.
“We don’t consider it a bonus; we purposefully don’t call it a bonus,” Stevenson said. “We consider it an incentive.”
Dan Goldhaber, a labor economist and research professor at the University of Washington who focuses on education, said he understands why people would be upset by bonuses for public-education administrators but said it makes good business sense.
“In a competitive labor market, it’s not like schools are giving out bonuses because they like the administrator,” he said. “People have competing possibilities outside of the district from other companies or school systems. To keep that person, they need to pay that person.”
The district is nationally recognized for its Professional Compensation System, or ProComp — a tax-supported pay program that gives teachers bonuses for meeting certain objectives.
Teachers in 2008 approved changes to ProComp, giving them extra funds every year for working at poor schools or teaching difficult subjects, among other things.
Before the changes, teachers received just under $7 million from the ProComp trust. This year, ProComp teachers received $19 million — $15 million of which was not salary-building.
The 3,143 ProComp teachers averaged $6,120 in bonuses this year.
Principals have their own form of ProComp. About 200 principals and assistant principals received $1.9 million for pushing achievement and teaching at poor schools. The bonuses ranged from $20,875 for the top performers to nothing for those who failed to meet certain objectives.
The top four earners were from Greenwood, Cowell, Montclair and Goldrick elementary schools. They each received $20,875, most of which was earned because of the high academic growth of their students. The principals also received $6,000 apiece for working at a high-poverty school.
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com