Downs and O'Brien, sure, I can see that. But Purdy - really? After all, he was there for so long and things didn't really get better during his tenure, no matter what he may say. Flint Fowler seems like more of a fresh face, at least on the school board. I realize he's been at HHBGC for a while now.

It's about jobs Joe. The Community is made up of current or former SLPS employees who have a lot to benefit from a return to the old ways of doing business like employing an idiot like Cotton for no discernable reason. The only people associated with vocally with the Community who don't have a financial interest in the SLPS are Downs and Susan Turk.

All that said, Purdy means well and he isn't in this for personal gain. Others, well, the Lizz Brown contract is only the beginning of the funds and jobs people in the Community got.

I am surprised that The Community is still active. I almost never hear about it anymore -- and I went to a bunch of its meetings. Their endorsement may mean very little if their profile is low these days.

Lizz Brown broke with The Community last year.

It's about jobs, yes. For a lot of board critics and for the Slayers, who have pumped executive payroll at SLPS in ways the old board would never have dreamed (and that's saying a lot).

Kudos to Bill Haas and Amy Hilgemann for consistently challenging raiders of all parties. I'm sure Veronica O'Brien will continue their legacy and I intend to vote for her, Peter Downs and Jennifer Allen (no relation).

The problem with the salary issue is it isn't true.

If you look at the average administrator salaries, the SLPS has administrative salaries nearly $10,000 lower per administrator than most of the Districts that one would hold up to be reasonably good Districts in the region.

Taking a look at the three next populous districts.

Rockwood has an average salary of $82463, 22034, and 93 administrators

Parkway has 87 administrators (down 12 from 2001) with an average salary of 86,362 and 19578 students

Hazelwood has the fewest with 66.5 administrators (FTE for all of these) down from 76 with $87,491/year average and 19311 students

The SLPS has 179 FTE down from 185 in 2002 with an average of $75,904 salary and 38255.

Now, the SLPS gets a bit of savings from the economies of scale--you only need one superintendent and fiscal control officer so based on that it saves money at the top, but with the high rates of special ed, alternative ed, federal compliance issues and vocational ed, it has a lot more administrative needs.

I've never criticized the number of administrators in the SLPS because that wasn't where the problem was--the problem was in support personnel--a long ignored category.

Now, in terms of the highest paid, remember the SLPS has fewer people over $100,000 than most local districts despite having more administrators. When you look at the increased pay even if you take the high paying jobs

$20,000 (or $40,000 if you take Floyd's salary)more for Pamela Hughes over Hammonds

$80,000 for the ops guy

$100,000 for Chief Academic Officer

$75,000 for the finance guy and the rest aren't much more than previous and the Building Commissioner's salary is folded into the ops guy

That's about $300,000 out of an administrative budget of slightly more than $45 million.

The Post-Dispatch likes to be cranky about this, but overall that isn't much money and it's in line with current salary increases. Claire's audit and the Great City Schools had methodological problems.

Claire's looked at only current unreformed districts and the GCS study looked at truly huge districts. The problem is that NCLB kicking in, salaries are increasing in nearly all districts.

The question about O'Brien is she is painfully incapable of understanding the budget. Repeatedly she and Peter have thrown around numbers about millions of dollars when it isn't true. Most of the money in the District is tied up in teaching salaries and administrative salaries. If you aren't going to cut those, what do you cut? Support personnel that aren't critical to your mission.

Oh, really? I have seen the same numbers. They are published by the district. You ought to see for yourself, then maybe you will change your tune.