Golden Parachutes for School Administrators Should be Reined In.

Today, the House Republicans rejected my effort to restrict huge bonuses and benefits, commonly called “golden parachutes,” that some school districts pay to administrators when their contracts end.

I offered a motion to withdraw Senate Bill 766 from the House Education Committee in order to let House members approve a limitation on the amount of salary and benefits that a school district, an education service district or a public charter school may pay an administrator at the end of his or her contract. The bill would have restricted such a payment to 25 percent of the salary and benefits paid to the person in the prior school year. The bill would also have prohibited providing retirement benefits to administrators that are not available to other employees.

The Republican majority killed the motion on a party-line vote, even though the Senate had passed the bill earlier in the legislative session.

The bill would help buy more books and programs, but fewer huge retirement bonuses for administrators. It would place some reasonable restrictions on golden parachutes that would not only save precious tax dollars, but also enable schools to devote a bigger share of their resources to the covering the costs that mean the most to Oregon—the education of our kids.

I believe now is the time to send a message to schools throughout Oregon, underscoring a clear priority for spending tax dollars in the classrooms, not on golden parachutes. We have no good reason to put this off for another two years.