District sets pay for new leader

Officials don’t know who will succeed Supt. Barbot, but they have named the salary: $235,000.Most administrators in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District say that it will be hard to find a superintendent better than Robert Barbot.

But one thing appears certain: Whoever takes the job next July will be a much richer man than Barbot was when he joined Newport-Mesa in 1998.

The superintendent’s starting salary, seven years ago, was $126,000 a year -- one of the lower paychecks for a California superintendent at the time, and barely half of what Barbot makes today.

At a special school board meeting Monday morning, the board members agreed to set a base salary of $235,000 for Barbot’s replacement.

According to Newport-Mesa administrators, the leader’s salary has increased over the last seven years as the district’s reputation grew statewide.

At the same time, school board president Serene Stokes said, the district boosted Barbot’s salary to keep up with state competition -- and it can expect to pay the same or more to the next person in office.

“I hate to use the word ‘bargain,’ but we got a very well-qualified administrator who wanted to relocate in Southern California at a very reasonable salary, and knowing that he wasn’t going to stay forever, we’ve tried to adjust his salary to meet the salary being offered in the state,” Stokes said.

Barbot said his present compensation was $236,000, almost identical to the base salary proposed for the next superintendent. However, Stokes and Deputy Supt. Paul Reed said, the next superintendent’s salary may be considerably higher due to any number of factors that my arise during the negotiation process.

Among the factors that could increase a starting salary are doctorates and other college degrees.

Dick Loveall, the director of executive search services for the California School Boards Assn., said he envisioned between 30 and 40 applicants for Barbot’s position.

Newport-Mesa should see a high number of contenders, he said, because of the district’s sterling reputation throughout the state.

“Not only do their students achieve well, but they have excellent facilities and community support,” said Loveall, whose Sacramento-based group conducts around 30 superintendent searches a year.

The Newport-Mesa district consists of 31 campuses and serves more than 20,000 students. In recent years, the district has routinely outscored the state average on the Academic Performance Index, which is based on a number of standardized tests.

Also at the Monday meeting, the board members outlined plans to advertise both state- and nationwide for a new superintendent. The board will officially post the job advertisement later this week and plans to appoint an advisory committee of parents and faculty within the next two months.

The deadline for applications will be next March, and the district hopes to have named Barbot’s successor by mid-May.