Salary List: Extended

On Monday we ran a big feature on what top public employees are paid. In pulling up the files and sending e-mails to pull in figures for the story, I ended up with a lot more than what was finally printed. Here are a few more numbers to think about.

Classroom Warriors: Teachers with an M.A. and more than 16 years of experience in both the elementary and secondary levels topped out at $61,720 last year, while a first-year teacher could expect to earn $32,746. This doesn’t include extra stipends which, I believe, can cover directing plays, or being in charge of a band, or coaching, or being athletic director. At the Chehalis School District, for example, the highest-paid elementary teacher gets $76,951 a year, while at W.F. West the big winner tops out at $83,009. 

Sideline teachers: High school athletic coaches are paid a stipend that covers payment for the length of that particular season. In Chehalis, for example, the highest paid varsity coach gets $6,432 a season. Here are a few others: Winlock, $3,398; Morton, $3,569.31; Adna, $4,025; Mossyrock, $3,971; Rochester, $5,311; Toledo, $4,846; and Onalaska, $5,239. 

I don’t have the specific names that go along with each of those figures, but sports fans can probably guess based on which coaches have been around the longest and, based on the particular school, feel the most pressure to succeed. Onalaska, for example, has a longstanding basketball tradition, thanks in no small part to coach Dennis Bower. Winlock can say the same for hoops coach Gary Viggers, and Adna’s gridiron guru K.C. Johnson might be under more scrutiny than any other coach in Lewis County’s fairest town. 

In Centralia (a figure which, sadly, I don’t have) I’d imagine that 40-year hoops veteran Ron Brown gets the highest stipend, although it could be argued that Tim Gilmore (who’s helped out with every Tiger sport from baseball to curling) might gross more with the 10 or 15 teams he seemingly coaches each year.

Breaking it down, the coaches earn every penny their paid. The average for those listed here is about $4,600. Say that covers basketball season, which can run from November to March, if the team makes state. That’s about four months, or $1,150 a month. Teams practice or play games five or six days a week. That could be about three hours a day for practice days, and closer to six for game days. Round it out to a conservative 25 hours a week and that’s about a whopping $11.50 an hour. 

Winlock, Morton, Mossyrock and Adna paid their high school principals between $80,000 and $90,000 last year, and principals at Onalaska and Toledo high schools were paid about $79,000. The bigger the school, the bigger the check; Rochester’s HS principal clocks in at about $95,000, and W.F. West’s top administrator pulls in over six figures (one of at least four Chehalis district employees to do so).

Superintendents, in general, pull in between $90,000 and $100,000. That can be less in the case of a part-time super (see Morton, $59,000), or more in larger districts (Rochester, $121,000).