Fred Navarro's Salary/Benefits....What?

A Personal Note…

***I know it looks like I really dislike or even hate Fred Navarro.

Au Contraire, I wrote two columns welcoming him to the district and talking about him in pretty glowing terms. I was hopeful. Those hopes were dashed right from the beginning when the district was asked to pay Dr. Barbot to “hold Navarro’s hand” during the first year and a half of his tenure. Again…What?

No one has ever heard of anything like this. If a person is considered for the job of superintendent, than the board should have decided that he could either do the job or not. This is not kindergarten and there are 22,000 students depending on him.

Here are the articles I wrote about Fred Navarro in 2011 and 2012.

https://patch.com/california/newportbeach/dear-dr-navarro

https://patch.com/california/newportbeach/a-conversation-with-dr-fred-navarro

FRED NAVARRO’S SALARY! WHAT??

There are a lot of things that are truly astonishing: dolphins can talk, we have summer rain in Newport, Kylie Jenner is a billionaire, Madonna has six children, and Newport Mesa Unified School District still has a superintendent that made a teeny bit more than the President of the United States in 2017. The President makes $400,000.

Not only is he embarrassingly overpaid, but we have a plethora of other admins., who though lovely people, are vastly overpaid as well. Consider this: The U.S. Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Education, and U.S. Attorney General make $210,700 as of 2018.

There was not one Nmusd administrator who made less than $219,230.88, and the top admin. made $289,498.06 in 2017.

These were the salaries and benefits of the top administrators in Newport Mesa Unified School District in 2017 according to Transparent California. Can you imagine what they make now? You will actually have to imagine because there is little way that you will be able to find out….at least easily.

It is in fact more than astonishing that Navarro makes this insane amount of money when you consider the number of “ mistakes” and plundering of resources in which he has led this district, and thereby cheating the students, teachers and honestly…YOU!

I don’t have anything against Dr. Navarro personally. In fact I wrote at least two columns welcoming him to NMUSD and talked about how impressed and hopeful I was. That was seven years ago and in that time he has done almost irreparable damage to this district.

The Navarro supporters/apologists will tell you that the constant drum beat of mistakes, either stupid or calculated is “old news”.

These people, in their haste to defend the indefensible superintendent, have forgotten the always true adage “The Past is Prologue”. In other words, if you think it’s bad now, just wait for what nightmare unthinkable and super expensive things are going to occur during the remainder of his contract ….which could be forever under the “Evergreen Provision” which allows his contract to continue automatically if timeline has not been followed and passes the supposed date. What?

Here is just a “partial” list of past debacles which has happened directly under Fred Navarro.

CDM cheating

Swun Math

Adams Fence

Fields

Academic Performance

Caldecott Termination

Bus Fees

Boss/ Huntington Lawsuit

Gold Ribbon Award

Banning Ranch Conflict of Interest

Overpay of Deputy Superintendent

Air Conditioning

Rats

Estancia Pool

Toxic and dangerous odor at Estancia

Legal Fees

Campus Safety

Decrepit Facilities

Fred Navarro should resign this immediately…