Town’s Principals Forego Pay Raises

By: John Paradise
Published: 12/26/09

The financial outlook for the Sandwich School District has prompted the town’s four principals to give up their contractual pay raises for the coming fiscal year.

“It’s something they wanted to do,” Superintendent Mary Ellen Johnson said this week.

The principals were slated to each receive a 4.5 percent increase that would have totaled $17,753.

Sandwich High School Principal Ellen Booras currently earns $111,683; Henry T. Wing School Principal Matthew Bridges earns $105,068; Forestdale Principal Sharon Bellao and Oak Ridge Principal Thomas Daniels each earn $101,365.

Dr. Johnson said it was incorrectly reported in the Enterprise that Ms. Bellao and Mr. Daniels each received a $3,000 performance bonus this year.

This error stems from contracts signed by Dr. Johnson that included bonuses for these two principals. Dr. Johnson said the bonus was included on the contracts by mistake, and she said she signed the documents in error.

She said Ms. Bellao and Mr. Daniels received the $3,000 bonus last year to bring their salaries closer to the Capewide average.

“There were no bonuses this year,” she said.

She also said the Enterprise was in error when it reported Ms. Bellao and Mr. Daniels received a 7 percent raise this year.

The two principals actually received a 4.5 percent increase. 

 “If you average all the administrators—that’s the principals and assistant principals—they received an average increase of 1.9 percent this year,” Dr. Johnson said. “Last year, they received 2.9 percent. The year before that—before I was superintendent—they got a 7 percent increase. I think this shows that we’re being very careful with our money. Even so, we’re still being criticized. I don’t think that’s fair.”