School heads salaries need to be realigned

It’s doubtful state Auditor Tim Keller is the only person whose jaw dropped after learning the husband-wife team who head the GREAT Academy charter school in Albuquerque draw salaries totaling $305,652 a year — an amount stratospherically higher than the $87,000 average other charter school executives in similar positions receive. (Meanwhile, the sixth- through 12th-grade school pays its instructors an average of $38,000 per year — 143rd-lowest among 148 school districts statewide.)

In a letter to the president of the school’s board of directors last week, Keller said the compensation paid to Executive Director Jasper Matthews and his wife, Principal Keisha Matthews, commands about 30 percent of the academy’s annual budget and that they are, by far, the highest-paid charter school executives in the state. (Their closest cohort is the principal at Albuquerque’s Mission Achievement and Success charter school, who makes $118,112 per year, according to state officials. That school has nearly double the enrollment of the academy’s roughly 200 students.)

Jasper Matthews’ annual salary is $163,952, which includes an $11,852 car allowance. He also has a $24,750 special education consulting contract with the academ — forms of compensation Keller characterized as “very irregular” but perfectly legal.

While the state Public Education Department gives charters wide latitude over employee pay, the compensation being lavished on the Matthews family (their daughter also works there) can reasonably be called exorbitant. No one from the school responded to an Albuquerque Journal reporter’s request for comment.

To their credit, the school does well academically, receiving an overall grade of B in the latest round by PED. But given that only a few charter leaders earn more than $100K a year, the Matthews’ compensation is troubling — to Keller and taxpayers.

Perhaps the school’s board of directors – according to the school’s website Dr. Penny Edwards, Michael Pitts, Jade Rogers, Ron Shorter and Ronnie Wallace – could explain publicly why the Matthews family receives such remuneration. In lieu of that, a realignment of their compensation to more closely reflect that of their peers should be in order.

— Albuquerque Journal