The superintendent's contract includes district funding to help him pay for his Pleasanton home. Since he earns over $200,000 + benefits and perks, shouldn't he be able to make mortgage payments from his salary without money fron the school district? Why are we making cuts to students and staff and he gets to sleep in his home he couldn't afford to buy in the first place. Maybe he should have bought in a different neighborhood that he could afford.

Who owns the house when he leaves the district? The school district? Does the school district get a portion of the selling price? Should taxpayers really be buying a personal residence for a school district employee? This is outrageous!!

To "concerned citizen" in Danbury Park, where did you get your information about his house being paid for? Is this heresay or is there documentation? I know awhile back there was a link here (I didn't go to it at the time, wish I had) that was supposed to show his contract. I was interested then but now with the parcel tax issue, I am interested. I was hoping someone could post it again. And if what you say is true, I agree that it is outrageous. Please provide your source if you have one. Thanks.

For some reason the Superintendents salary is the only one not posted online.
This information is two years out of date and the web link no longer works.
Someone needs to request this information under the public information act.

Posted by Tom, a resident of the Downtown neighborhood, on Feb 19, 2008 at 10:18 am

The board packet with this years salary and contract for the superindentent is at Web Link It is item 15.

In addition to the salary of $227,000 per year he receives some pretty good benefits:

10 holidays per year (more if another state holiday occurs on a weekend)

24 days of vacation per year (5 weeks)

$5,000 per year for life insurance

$10,000 per year into a tax sheltered annuity

$1,000 per month as a transportation allowance for use of his personal vehicle

Once retired receives taxpayer paid medical, dental and vision insurance for himself and his spouse until he reaches 65.
Car allowance, that is $1,000 per month. Items like expense accounts, travel, cell phones would not be part of a contract so the only way to find these is to look at the budget for the superintendent's department. You should also be able to get a detailed report of those types of expenses if you contacted the district. That is all public information and through the public information act the district has to give this to anybody who asks.
The superintendent budgets $13,000 for travel, $1660 for meals, $7000 for office supplies. For superintendent communications, which includes the public information officer, travel, office supplies and such is $175,150.

If you look at the complete charges for travel and conferences for the whole district there is about $510,000 for 2007.

Anybody who knows what a CEO does would understand that these types of packages are very normal. Dr. Casey manages 1,200 employees and the education of 14,000 students and a budget of $140 million. I have spoken to a couple of public school type associations to find out what other districts pay and we are right in line. Folks, how can we have a school district with amazing programs and is in the top 10 for the State without experienced leadership? You get what you pay for. I too was concerned when I first heard of his package and did my own research. When Dr. Casey does decide to retire, I only hope we can find a replacement of his caliber.

I agree that Casey is well qualified and we need good people at the helm of our "organization"...BUT...so are the other staff being cut (or proposed to be cut) or asked to take 1% pay cuts. Leadership starts at the top and if Casey wants support, he needs to be willing to feel some of the pain as well.

The public is entitled to see the entire contract of the superintendent but you have to ask for ALL Ancillary Documents, not just the info posted in the School Board packet. The mortgage subsidy by the taxpayers was a separate piece of paper from the contract describing salary, and benefits. It was an enticement to get him to move to Pleasanton.

However, there were more affordable homes available that didn't require taxpayers to subsidize. Wouldn't we all likje our employer to give us a hefty salary and benefits plus help us pay our mortage?

I believe Dr. Casey was given a $400,000 loan to purchase his home. If the loan hasn't been forgiven (a possibility), at retirement he would have to repay the district upon sale of the home or within some called out period of time (18 months is not unusual). I do not know if he would owe interest on that loan. If you are asking for the contract, be certain to ask for any side letters/agreements or you may not see the whole picture. I agree that Pleasanton deserves and will need to pay for experience. Given the Signature debacle, I'd be disappointed if we didn't make every effort to find someone better.

Thanks James, you hit the nail on the head. Dr. Casey is a very caring, personable, and qualified leader. He may make more money than some people in this city, and his job may be protected, but he is doing a great job. Our school district is one to be proud of and that doesn't happen with poor leadership. People are always looking for someone to blame when things aren't going their way. Our state is in a terrible situation and Dr. Casey and the district leaders are trying to do the best they can with what they have been given.

I ditto "Love PUSD's" comment.

Wrong! Casey is like the financial institutions looking for us to bail him out.
No more bailouts! No parcel tax!

I don't agree Eric, He is not looking to have himself bailed out. As James stated above, this is a very tough job, and Dr. Casey has done an admirable job in his role given the circumsatances. I am personally tired of the blame game going on. No ONE person is responsible for OUR current dilema. Why is it that the public wants all of the credit when things are good, but won't accept any responsibility when times get tough? I fear we are headed towards a socialist society.

Given the current state's budget crisis, we must with a fine-tooth comb the amount of money spent by the school board on its administrative staff. The priority here is to see how the district can do more with less and NOT knee-jerk in cutting programs and teachers. All private sectors are going through the same exercise in-order to make themselves more competitive, efficient, and basically survive. Why isn't the district madated to do the same? If Dr. Casey wants to continue to be employed, he'll just need adapt to the current environment and take a drastic pay cut. Otherwise, we should look at replacing him with someone who would do the same for less...which won't be that hard in this economy.

By making the school district more efficient and mandating it to continually improve its operations, we all win. At the same time, we should employ a parcel tax to fund even more programs and improve our schools. This can only benefit all of us homeowners in the long run since many people move here for the great schools. If we allow our schools to deteriorate, our home prices will no doubt plummet as quickly as those in Livermore and Tracy. So, we'll need to attack this budget problem by mandating efficiencies from the school board and passing a parcel tax to improve our school's programs.

In response to Eric's comment:

"Wrong! Casey is like the financial institutions looking for us to bail him out.
No more bailouts! No parcel tax!"

Dr. Casey is looking for the financial means to continue to do what is BEST for our CHILDREN. The district did not endlessly spend money on frivolous items. They spent money on programs, materials, teachers, etc. for our children. The State of California, for many reasons, cannot adequately fund ANY school district in California right now. San Jose is estimating cutting 23 million dollars. This crisis is everywhere. You are not bailing out John Casey. You are bailing out our children from the potential of receiving a less than adequate education.

You do need to realize that it takes time to run a business into the ground. PUSD has been living on its prior success for a good many years. In the last 15 years our demographics and economics has changed. Some good - some not good. Dr. Casey has had the good fortune to have inherited a well run school district with a great deal of parent and community support. However, those dynamics have changed in recent years and it has had its effects. What has Dr. Casey and staff done to take that success and lead into the future?? It used to be that school principals rotated schools on a regular basis to share good practices and prevent complacency. That stopped with Casey. Foothill was a well run school with excellent teachers with 3/5 of my children. That has changed. Teachers are now more concerned with what their contract says - not what is excellence in education. We used to support long term strategic curriculum - we now teach to the test and support what LOOKS good - not necessarily what is good. We spend a great deal of time "patting" each other on the back with data. The data only shows what you want it to show. Read between the lines - PUSD is failing a good percentage of our kids. Parents get involved - stay involved and help turn the ship around. If everyone does their part - classified staff to the superintendent and students to their parents - we can change the direction and bring the old district to the forefront.

To resident of Foothill High that said:

It used to be that school principals rotated schools on a regular basis to share good practices and prevent complacency. That stopped with Casey.

You got that right! As a former Alisal parent, I saw that school sink year after year for six straight years. Sure there were blue ribbon awards (that the school applied for) and decent test scores but what a terrible climate for students, parents and the teachers that were not of the "chosen" group. There should have been a change in principal long before there was and things would have changed.

And in regard to Casey's "package", if it is a reasonable salary and benefits for a similar position why all the secrecy and side documents to the contract? Why have to request all these addendums and other budget reports? Seems to me it should be straight forward
- you get x,y,z for the job.

We need to make this LOUD AND CLEAR to Casey and his crew at PUSD. There will be NO BAILOUT for PUSD so long as he and his crew continues to slash classes and programs and not eliminate the administrative "FAT". We're all tightening our belts and so should Casey and his crew.

If Casey is not competent enough to do his job of balancing the budget and ensuring that the kids of Pleasanton get the quality education they deserve, he should be replaced immediately. He has to take the initiative to fix PUSD's budget NOW and begin cutting the admin costs. Contracts with the union and himself need to be renegotiated to bring back the millions of dollars funneled into their pockets back to funding the kids' education. This needs to happen NOW!

While I don't disagree that Management and Staff should feel the budget pain, Pleasanton has lived high on the "developer funded hog" for a long time. Whether the economy crashed and burned, or whether we reached true "build out," this scenario was in our future -- regardless of timing.

Suggestion -- rather than making it all Casey's problem/fault and debating his contract to death, why not see how you parents can pitch in and volunteer?