Headmaster Compensation

<p><a href="http://www.golocalworcester.com/news/top-50-new-england-boarding-schools-heads-average-420000-in-compensation"&gt;http://www.golocalworcester.com/news/top-50-new-england-boarding-schools-heads-average-420000-in-compensation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I’m rather surprised by the number of heads making over $500K. “Average” teachers at these schools (say twenty years experience) might make on the order of 50-60K, over and above housing/meals. Reaching multiples of 8 and over, roughly, had contributed to the Bishop Anderson upset at St. Paul’s ten years ago. The situation there admittedly had a lot more to it than head compensation, but at the time, it was stunning to see just how much more than those in the trenches this guy was worth. An endowment of hundreds of millions, putting the school in the top five, with strong long-term returns and fundraising, was the justification for this largesse. Certainly, there are lots of schools in this top-fifty list that don’t have $100 million in endowment assets. </p>

<p>It used to be that private school teachers understood that they would make less than public teachers. You were supposed to find non-monetary rewards because you “weren’t going to get rich” doing this. Who would have thought that the boss was in the 1%? As schools, and their trustees, have borrowed more heavily from the business model and mindset, you could see this outcome developing over the last ten years, especially if you followed the publicly available non-profit tax forms (on sites like Guidestar). </p>

<p>Hmmmm… I started digging around for more data on headmaster compensation, and this is what I found:
<a href=“Charity Navigator - Rating for Regents of the Mercersburg College”>Charity Navigator - Rating for Regents of the Mercersburg College;
Sorry, London203, Charger & SevenDad, but there was no data available for SAS & PAS.</p>

<p>The data columns:

  1. Headmaster compensation from IRS form 990
  2. students enrolled

  3. actual Headmaster compensation as % of Operating Expenses
  4. expected % op expenses for a school of that enrollment size = ((# students)^-0.78) * 1.132
  5. Column 3 minus Column 4
  6. Boarding school name
  7. Headmaster name</p>

<p>The list is sorted on column 5, i.e. from underpaid to overpaid…</p>

<p>$152,629 | 206 | 1.08% | 1.77% | ** -0.69% ** | Miss Halls | Jeannie K. Norris (former)
$153,750 | 232 | 1.28% | 1.62% | ** -0.34% ** | Vermont Acad | Sean P. Brennan
$231,515 | 359 | 0.87% | 1.15% | ** -0.28% ** | St. Marks | John C. Warren
$295,721 | 594 | 0.51% | 0.78% | ** -0.27% ** | Hotchkiss | Malcolm McKenzie
$332,309 | 1085 | 0.33% | 0.49% | ** -0.16% ** | Exeter | Thomas E. Hassan
$400,981 | 799 | 0.49% | 0.62% | ** -0.13% ** | Cranbrook | Frederick Nahm
$285,832 | 576 | 0.67% | 0.80% | ** -0.13% ** | Taft | William R. MacMullen
$374,075 | 1141 | 0.35% | 0.47% | ** -0.12% ** | Andover | Barbara L. Chase
$235,707 | 252 | 1.42% | 1.52% | ** -0.10% ** | Eaglebrook | Andrew Chase
$372,256 | 816 | 0.53% | 0.61% | ** -0.08% ** | Lawrenceville | Elizabeth Duffy
$360,319 | 630 | 0.67% | 0.74% | ** -0.07% ** | Deerfield | Margarita Curtis
$227,511 | 400 | 1.04% | 1.06% | ** -0.02% ** | Lawrence Acad | D. Scott Wiggins
$331,900 | 240 | 1.56% | 1.58% | ** -0.02% ** | Thacher | Michael K. Mulligan
$418,384 | 371 | 1.13% | 1.12% | ** 0.01% ** | Groton | Richard B. Commons
$333,940 | 650 | 0.76% | 0.72% | ** 0.04% ** | Loomis Chaffee | Sheila Culbert
$302,000 | 506 | 0.94% | 0.88% | ** 0.06% ** | Hill | David R. Dougherty
$396,012 | 430 | 1.07% | 1.00% | ** 0.07% ** | Mercersburg | T. Douglas Hale
$343,085 | 560 | 0.93% | 0.81% | ** 0.12% ** | Kent | Richardson W. Schell
$514,713 | 865 | 0.79% | 0.58% | ** 0.21% ** | Choate | Edward Shanahan (former)
$550,286 | 695 | 0.90% | 0.69% | ** 0.21% ** | Milton | Theodorick Bland
$293,226 | 324 | 1.48% | 1.25% | ** 0.23% ** | Kimbell Union | Michael Schafer
$327,401 | 409 | 1.33% | 1.04% | ** 0.29% ** | Avon Old Farms | Kenneth H. LaRocque
$376,276 | 270 | 1.82% | 1.44% | ** 0.38% ** | Cate | Benjamin D. Williams
$298,912 | 645 | 1.20% | 0.73% | ** 0.47% ** | Worcester Acad | Dexter Morse
$551,640 | 435 | 1.64% | 0.99% | ** 0.65% ** | Episcopal | F. Robertson Hershey</p>

<p>If you plot column 2) vs column 3) in Excel, you will see a fairly well-behaved trend showing that: the greater the # of students, the lower the headmaster’s compensation is as a percentage of operating expenses. No surprise there that larger schools enjoy economies of scale. </p>

<p>What the list reveals: </p>

<p>Ms. Jeannie K. Norris, the former headmaster of Miss Halls School was waaaay underpaid—probably why she is the former headmaster. </p>

<p>Mr. Malcolm McKenzie of The Hotchkiss School also deserves a raise, since he has to live in the middle of nowhere.</p>

<p>Mr. F. Robertson Hershey of Episcopal High School is VERY handsomely compensated compared to his peers.</p>

<p>because living expenses are higher in DC? </p>

<p>No data on those in the article? NMH, etc? </p>

<p>Thank you GMT for always illuminating data!</p>

<p>I’m more curious about sports coaches… would it be as scandalous as college coaches? Hmm.</p>

<p>@payn4ward, that occured to me too, but this is the compensation for other DC headmasters:</p>

<p>$220,189 Sidwell Friends
$296,202 Georgetown Prep </p>

<p>Episcopal is stratospheric compared to them.</p>

<p>GMT, is it possible that some of your figures are just base salary, while others include retirement, deferred comp and other benefits? The adjusted figure can add as much as $100K to base, from what I’ve seen. </p>

<p>@Charger, I wondered about that too (my employer adds all kinds of non-salary compensation to my W-2 at the end of the year). </p>

<p>But that is the number that the school supposedly reported on its 990 form. </p>

<p>@payn4ward, I did look for NMH data but couldn’t find it on the website I linked. </p>

<p>I’ve heard that Headmaster Hershey uses part of his enormous salary to fund full-ride scholarships for a handful of students at his school. I tend to believe the people who told me this, and it certainly helps make that huge number make more sense.</p>

<p>@Albion, if so, bravo to Hershey.</p>

<p>These headmaster salaries look rather modest when viewed against those of many college presidents. </p>

<p>How about D1 football or basketball coaches!</p>

<p>@SevenDad, ugh! That subject is too depressing to contemplate.</p>

<p>@GMTplus7, David Dougherty retired from Hill in 2012. Zach Lehman is the Headmaster, since 2012. Perhaps these stats are pre 2013?</p>

<p>Right off the bat these three have a different Head Master and probably others.
Pomfret
Groton
Governors</p>

<p>“Those who do not read the news are uniformed. Those that do are misinformed.” - Mark Twain</p>

<p>These statistics are from 2012</p>

<p>Even so, it’s a heckofalot of money. </p>

<p>

I got the stats from this charity rating website:
<a href=“Charity Navigator - Rating for Regents of the Mercersburg College”>Charity Navigator - Rating for Regents of the Mercersburg College;

<p>It’s indeed likely that the stats are 2012, since the figures reportedly come from IRS 990 filings, and a lot of organizations and people (me included) have yet to complete their 2013 tax year return.</p>

<p>I’m there with you…</p>

<p>I’m there with you… October is the cruelest month</p>