Top Earners in the Danvers Public Schools in 2012

This is the third part in a series looking at town employee salaries in 2012. The first part looked at the top earner on the list while the second part looked at police and fire salaries. This installment covers school employees.

School Department employees, in general, do not place as highly as public safety officers and light plant workers on the list of top earners in town, except for certain administrators. There are also a fair number of teachers who earn at the top step of their pay scale and then some.

Nine employees earned more than $100,000 in 2012 and 58 teachers took home more than $87,237 – the top step on the scale for union members. There are certain degrees needed to attain the topmost steps, but the pay is at least $80,000 or close to it for each one. A couple teachers even cracked $100,000 and several others weren't far off.

The six-figure club for 2012 was Superintendent Lisa Dana, Assistant Superintendent/Danvers High Principal Susan Ambrozavitch, Director of Student Services Mary Tatem, Danvers High Assistant Principal Mark Strout, Guidance Counselor Joy Leblanc, former Holten-Richmond Middle School Principal Michael Cali who retired last year, Middle School Curriculum Director Mary Wermers Schissel and teachers Ronald Parsons and Roger Day.

Under the latest union contract, which covers Fiscal 2012-2014, teachers received a 4.5 percent salary increase over three years in addition to continued longevity bonuses and stipends for additional duties, coaching athletics or running co-curricular activities.

In the current fiscal year, teachers with 15 years in Danvers are paid an extra $250, teachers with 20-25 years get $950, teachers with 25-30 years get $1,450 and those with 30 or more years get $2,850.

For example, longtime teacher and high school baseball coach Roger Day, who retired earlier this year, earned $100,795 in 2012. He was also paid a stipend for coaching baseball and in years' past as an assistant football coach. The stipends are tied to the same rate of increase as salaries, which meant Day received $4,950 in FY 2013 for coaching baseball.

Sean Rogers, who is the head football coach and a middle school teacher, earned $8,983 for coaching as part of his total $81,032 in earnings last year.

Another thing revealed by a look at salaries is the small difference in earnings between most administrators and top-level teachers, which has created a level of inequity the School Committee has been trying to adjust for in recent years.

Committee members have argued during budget talks that asking non-union staff to take pay freezes in tough times inevitably created a cycle of inequity.

School employees who were among the top 100 earners in town: