The chairpersons of Kentucky’s 174 local boards of education are receiving an update from Education Commissioner Terry Holliday on the state Department of Education’s plans to collect and publish on the Internet specifics of the employment contracts and benefits of superintendents.
In a May 30 letter, Holliday said the information will be collected between July 1 and Aug. 31.
“As you may be aware, each superintendent’s salary information is currently available on the KDE website. However, additional detail on contracts and benefits has to be obtained through individual open record requests to each school district,” the commissioner said. “A single KDE website location for such information will reduce the number of individual requests to each school district, provide easily accessible data to the public at one location, and promote public transparency.”
Starting July 1, local school district finance officers (or appropriate designees) will submit information for the 2013-14 school year to KDE through an online survey. Contract information for interim superintendents also will be required. Any changes in the contracts over the course of a school year must be reported to the state.
“Once the data is compiled, it will be available on the KDE website,” Holliday said in the letter. “A notification will be included in my weekly Monday or Friday email correspondence to notify you when the information is posted. Updates will be provided quarterly to provide any new or revised information.”
Holliday began sending both the department’s Monday Superintendent Email and Fast Five on Friday electronic newsletters to local board chairpersons a few months ago.
The commissioner announced his intention to collect and distribute information on superintendent contracts following revelations from a series of special reports by the Office of the State Auditor.