Nobody Voted for Them. Many Make Six Figures.
A superintendent in a mid-size Arizona school district just approved a raise for herself. Nobody voted for it. Nobody had to vote for it. The board she largely controls voted yes, and that was enough.
This is not an attack on a particular superintendent or a particular district. It is a description of how the system works in Arizona and thirty other states where unelected administrators have reached compensation levels that rival elected state legislators, some judges, and governors' appointed cabinet officials.
The numbers are not classified. They are public record. Most taxpayers do not read them.
Where the Comparison Breaks Down
An Arizona state legislator makes $24,000 a year. A superintendent in Chandler, Gilbert, or Tempe makes twelve times that. Sometimes more. Add the pension calculation — which uses the highest-earning years and compounds over a career that often spans thirty years — and the long-term cost to taxpayers of a single superintendent's employment approaches two million dollars.
The legislator who voted on the state budget that funded those schools faced an election. Lost that race, and another person took the seat. The superintendent does not face that test. The superintendent's contract says what the superintendent wants it to say, because the superintendent negotiates with a board that depends on the superintendent to run the district.
Call it what it is: a structural conflict of interest written into state law.
Arizona Revised Statutes § 15-341 gives the superintendent authority over district personnel, curriculum, budget execution, and day-to-day operations. The same law creates a governing board to hire and evaluate the superintendent. In practice, the superintendent proposes the evaluation metrics. The board approves the superintendent's recommendations. The superintendent's contract extends. The superintendent's pay rises.
A parent who shows up to a school board meeting and objects to curriculum or spending has five minutes at the microphone. The superintendent sits at the table and knows the board will vote with the superintendent because the superintendent has been there for six years and the board members rotate in and out.
The National Pattern
A 2023 analysis of state government payrolls found that in twenty-eight states, the average school superintendent salary exceeded the salary of the governor. In seventeen states, average superintendent compensation — including benefits and pension calculations — exceeded $300,000 annually.
Arizona is not an outlier here. Arizona is the norm.
Superintendent salaries have outpaced teacher salaries by roughly 3.5 times over the last fifteen years. Meanwhile, Arizona teacher compensation ranks in the bottom ten nationally, adjusted for cost of living. That gap did not happen by accident. It happened because teachers have a union with a budget and a lobbyist, and administrators control the budget. The administrator priorities won.
What Arizona Parents Should Know
Your school district's unelected superintendent exercises more day-to-day control over your child's education than any elected official. The superintendent approves the curriculum. The superintendent hires the principal. The superintendent decides which books the library receives. The superintendent determines how much money goes to administration versus the classroom.
You will never vote this person out. You cannot recall this person. You cannot primary this person. You can complain to the school board, which the superintendent hired and negotiated with.
That compensation package — the six-figure salary, the car allowance, the insurance bump at retirement, the pension multiplier — comes from the tax money you paid. Arizona K-12 public schools received $15.2 billion in state general fund appropriations for the 2023-2024 fiscal year. Roughly 14 percent of that money supports administration rather than classroom instruction. That math means roughly $2.1 billion of your education tax dollar goes to district offices, central administration, and overhead.
Compare that to a charter school. A charter executive director often makes $120,000 to $180,000 annually. But a charter school board is elected by parents. A charter school board can be recalled. A charter school that fails to perform loses its authorization. Charter schools have turned over their boards by the dozen when boards lost community confidence.
Public school boards do not work that way. A school board member who votes to fire a superintendent faces organized opposition. The next election, a slate of candidates backed by district staff runs against the recall-minded board member. The board member loses and is replaced by someone the superintendent finds acceptable.
The Accountability Gap
This is not an argument against hiring talented administrators. A district with 50,000 students genuinely needs competent central management. The argument is about accountability and transparency.
Post every contract online. List every administrator earning more than $150,000. Include the total cost of benefits and projected pension obligations. Do what Arizona does with state employee compensation — make it searchable, sortable, and visible to any parent who takes ten minutes to look.
Require annual superintendent performance reviews to be public record. Require the board to hold a public hearing before approving any administrator salary increase above three percent annually. Require competitive bidding for superintendent positions so the board cannot simply extend the current superintendent's contract without comparing options.
None of this is radical. All of it is standard practice for elected and appointed state officials.
Your next school board meeting is Tuesday at 7 p.m. Ask for the salary schedules. Ask for the contract terms. Ask why the superintendent's raise was approved in closed session. Ask what it costs to employ administration per student compared to five years ago.
Write down the answers. You paid for those decisions. You deserve to watch them made.
