(The Center Square) – Secretaries are well known for earning modest wages, but not the ones who work at Pocantico Hills Central School District. At the school district of 500 students outside New York City, secretaries make $130,000 and $190,000 a year, an investigation by The Center Square found.
The highest paid is Gina L. Downes, a confidential secretary. Her salary is $110,538 this school year, and she will receive $79,281 in benefits and other payments. Downes, who will complete her 20th year on the job in the spring, has benefited from a civil service-based pay system, a common feature in the public sector.
Another secretary, Annabel Maya, will earn $73,659 plus $56,034 in benefits and overtime. Her tenure began four years ago.
Downes and Maya were among the district’s well-compensated employees.
Daniel Linehan, a physical education teacher who started in the district in 1995, will earn a salary of $146,199 and almost $60,000 in other benefits this school year.
Michael Vanyo, assistant superintendent for business and operations, will make $240,507 and $53,511 in benefits.
In a phone interview, Vanyo defended the pay packages.
“I have very few staff members, so those secretaries are doing multiple jobs, he said. “Plus, they tend to stay, because Pocantico Hills is a good place to work and live. I could pay them less, but we would have constant turnover.”
Pocantico Hills Central School District, in Westchester County, is not alone in the Empire State in compensating its employees generously. Another district is Shelter Island Union Free School District, a school district of roughly 190 students in Suffolk County.
Office assistant Donna Clark will earn $98,792 in salary, benefits, and other payments this school year, while her counterpart, Meghan Lang, will rack up $91,328, according to school district records.
While Clark’s and Lang’s secretarial peers in Pocantico Hills earn more, Shelter Island pays its top administrators more.
The district’s superintendent, Dr. Brian Doelger, will take home an eye-popping $319,170 in salary, benefits, and other payments this school year. Director of Athletics Todd Gulluscio will receive a total pay package of $189,513.
The school district did not respond to a request for comment.
A third school district that rewards employees with generous pay packages is Bridgehampton Union Free School District in Suffolk County, a region known popularly as the Hamptons.
Superintendent Mary T. Kelly will earn a total pay package of $246,291, while two district staff members will make six figures. District clerk Tammy Cavanaugh made $44,318 in salary, benefits, and overtime from July 1 to Nov. 14, a prorated figure that comes out to $118,938 this school year. Brianna Covais, director for pupil personnel services, earned $59,423 in salary, a figure that prorated comes out to $159,480 this school year.
The three school districts’ per-pupil spending was among the highest in New York State’s K-12 public school system of 2.4 million students, according to state data. Pocantico Hills spent $71,439 per student, while Shelter Island spent $65,959 in the 2023-2024 school year. Both are on the high end of what private four-year colleges charge for tuition.
Bridgehampton spent $92,586 for each of its roughly 200 pupils in 2023-2024. The sum was more than the $90,012 that Pepperdine University, a private Christian school in Malibu, Calif., charged for on-campus tuition.
In a previous story, district staff attributed the high per-pupil costs to infrastructure spending spread over very few students, but additional data obtained by The Center Square shows that salaries in those districts are also big budget items.
Zilvinas Silenas, president and CEO of The Empire Center for Public Policy, a non-profit, free-market-oriented think tank, said high salaries help account for the districts’ high spending.
“The median pay for a teacher in Pocantico is $121,703, which is in the top 20 percent of school districts with the highest median pay,” he noted.
Vanyo, Pocantico Hills’ assistant superintendent, said the district spends more on other budgetary needs.
“It is a unique situation,” he said in an interview. “We are a K-8 school district and pay tuition for our high school students.”
Vanyo added that the district pays the costs of its high school students to attend one of three public schools in the area, as well as the textbooks and healthcare of students who attend private high schools.
The typical school district in New York spent $35,095 per pupil in the 2023-2024 school year, according to the state’s Department of Education. The figure was the highest nationwide. By contrast, Utah spent roughly $10,000.
Despite New York’s high median figure, six school districts spent almost or more than $70,000 per student, double the average.
The top spending district was the Fire Island Unified School District, a small island off the coast of Long Island. It reported spending $132,196 for each of its roughly 50 students, according to state data.
The second-highest spending district was Bridgehampton Union Free School District in Suffolk County. It spent $92,586 for each of its roughly 200 pupils in 2023-2024.
Two more high-spending districts were in Suffolk County on eastern Long Island. Quogue Union Free School District spent $86,163 for each of its roughly 130 students, while Amagansett Union Free School District spent $78,916 for each of its roughly 120 pupils.
To get a better handle on the districts’ spending, last month, The Center Square submitted requests under New York’s Freedom of Information Law for staff salaries at five school districts.
What the districts’ responses show is that generous staff pay is only one reason for high spending.
“It’s complex and multi-factorial,” Silvenas said in an interview, “To be fair to Pocantico Hills School District, there are roughly 100 school districts where median teacher pay is even higher.”
Consider Scarsdale Unified School District in Westchester County, a district of 4,700 students outside New York City. It pays its teachers $156,000 annually, the highest in the state. Yet Scarsdale spent $37,800 per pupil in 2023-204, a figure far below that of Pocantico Hills’ $71,439.
Silvenas acknowledged that transportation, building upkeep, and classroom materials are key reasons for high spending. Each of the six highest spending school districts in New York has fewer than 500 students, a barrier to economies of scale.
Dr. Mary T. Kelly, superintendent of Bridgehampton’s school district, said small districts like hers get no breaks from the state.
“Bridgehampton offers a full continuum of services — including Advanced Placement courses, a new Career and Technical Education program, athletics, performing arts, special education, and transportation across a large geographic area — all of which must be provided regardless of enrollment size,” she said in an interview.
While capital and transportation costs are important, teacher and staff salaries are, too.
Roxbury Central School District in upstate New York had roughly 230 students in the 2023-24 school year, a figure less than half that of Pocantico Hills and only 40 fewer than Shelter Island. Yet Roxbury spent less on annual teacher salaries—$60,517 per teacher, according to The Empire Center.
That was similar to the $59,449 and $57,673 annual salaries of Shelter Island’s two office assistants and tens of thousands less than Pocantico Hills’ two secretaries.
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Vanyo rejected the comparison between upstate and downstate school districts.
“We’re twenty-five miles outside New York City,” he said in an interview. “It’s an expensive place to live.”