As the leader of Maryland’s largest school district, newly appointed Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Taylor is earning an annual salary of $360,000. That’s $40,000 more than that of his predecessor, Monifa McKnight.
McKnight’s contract put her annual salary at $320,000. When she left the job in January, she got a payout of $1.3 million from the Montgomery County school system.
Taylor’s contract also includes 13% of his base salary in deferred compensation each year. He’ll also get the use of a Montgomery County school system-owned vehicle and be reimbursed for relocation expenses.
Taylor is required to establish residency by Aug. 1 and his contract requires quarterly meetings with the school board to discuss progress.
The School Superintendent’s Association, or AASA, a national organization, conducts superintendent salary studies each year. In the last year, the survey showed that superintendent salaries didn’t keep pace with inflation over the last decade. According to the 2023-2024 survey, the median salary for 2023 was $7,000 less than the median salary in 2013.
But Noelle Ellerson Ng, associate executive director for Advocacy and Governance with the AASA, told WTOP, salary ranges depend on a number of factors. That can include location, size of a school district and expertise of a candidate.
A contract offer, she said, can be “as much an opportunity to be competitive with where the superintendent might otherwise go, as it is to want to recruit and retain the highest quality candidate to their district.”
When asked if a school district should expect that paying their superintendents top dollar should result in improved student performance, Ellerson Ng said, “Ideally, when you pay more, you are getting more.”
“It’s also important to keep in mind that districts might not be hiring solely for academic improvement, right?” she added.
Ellerson Ng explained there are times when a district will be looking for a candidate that can handle hot-button topics in a community, or they need someone with top-level budgetary skills along with expertise in education policy.
With the contract that Taylor’s just signed, he’s not the highest-paid in the region.
In the D.C. area, superintendent pay ranges from the $345,000 annual salary for Prince George’s County Schools Superintendent Millard House, to the $380,000 salary earned by Fairfax County’s Superintendent Michelle Reid.
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