Six Fox School District administrators have agreed to take a 5 percent pay cut, saving the district about $50,000, said acting Superintendent Tim Crutchley, one of the administrators who agreed to give up some of his pay for the 2014-2015 school year.
The others are assistant superintendents Lorenzo Rizzi, Todd Scott, Andy Arbeitman and Dan Baker, along with newly hired chief financial officer John Brazeal.
Before the cut, their pay ranged from $165,000 to $140,521.
But, all six tore up their old contracts and signed new ones for 5 percent less, Crutchley said.
Principals, assistant principals and other administrators have since been encouraged to do the same, which would mean more savings, Crutchley said.
Brazeal, who has told school officials that $7 million needs to be cut from the budget to avoid deficit spending, was the first to volunteer to take the cut, and the other Central Office administrators followed suit, Crutchley said.
“He (Brazeal) looked at the budget and realized the issues we had and immediately said he was going to take a 5 percent pay cut,” Crutchley said. “He said he wanted to do that, and we (in the Central Office) all agreed to do it also.”
Brazeal was to be paid a $165,000 annual salary, but after the 5 percent pay cut, he will earn $156,750.
School officials announced the voluntary pay cut Tuesday night (July 22) at the Fox Board of Education meeting.
In addition, the Central Office administrators gave up the cell phones the district had been paying for in an effort to cut costs, Crutchley said.
Also at the Tuesday meeting, the board signed off on $2.25 million in cuts to the budget, which included freezing all employees’ pay this school year; leaving some vacant jobs unfilled; eliminating most of the student worker jobs and not hiring substitutes to fill in for most classified employees, like custodians and secretaries.
The board will continue discussing the budget over the next couple of months to determine what other costs can be made to reach the $7 million cuts needed to avoid deficit spending.