MUSD board decides performance pay for superintendent

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MUSD Superintendent Steve Chestnut. Photo by Michelle Chance

The passage of the override and the retention of school staff were two of many deciding factors in a performance-pay plan awarded to the Maricopa Unified School District superintendent.

Wednesday evening, the MUSD Governing Board awarded Steve Chestnut $7,700 for meeting specific goals in its strategic plan for the 2016-17 school year.

“Knowing that we passed the override and this year we’ve had the least amount of teacher’s leaving, that tells you something,” Board member Torri Anderson said.

Board members agreed the override allowed Chestnut to achieve certain strategies like improving relationships with stakeholders and legislators, among other accomplishments.

Despite achievements, the board did not award Chestnut the full performance pay amounted negotiated in his contract. Board members could have awarded its superintendent $8,977, but chose the lesser amount because of goals they said Chestnut did not meet completely. Most of Wednesday’s discussion took place in closed session.

“It’s not just one particular goal that he didn’t meet. It was bits and pieces of each of those strategies underneath those goals that we didn’t feel were fully achieved,” said Board President Patti Coutré.

The MUSD Strategic Plan includes four overall goals with accompanying sub-strategies that provide a guide for the board to follow when negotiating the superintendent’s performance pay.

The four main goals are:

  1. Improve student learning and become an “A” rated school district with each school achieving an “A” grade.
  2. Increase and expand innovative opportunities.
  3. Recruit, train and retain a high-quality staff.
  4. Improve instructional technology.

As of now, MUSD is a B-rated school district based off student achievement, an area Chestnut said had room for improvement.

“Student achievement is our focus, it has been, and it will continue to be,” Chestnut said.

Chestnut said the board is required under statute to evaluate him through a performance plan and subsequent pay based off of it.

During the meeting, the board also voted to strike its private negotiation and possible renewal of Chestnut’s contract from its agenda due to the absence of the board’s attorney and two of its board members.

Chestnut’s current contract ends in June 2018. Coutré said superintendents are permitted to initiate negotiations 15 months before a contract ends.

“(The new contract) would start July of 2018 and it would go to whatever year we decide; that is what we are negotiating now — the detail on that,” Anderson said.

The contract discussions will take place in executive session at the next board meeting in August.