Ask ELi: Are ELPS Budget Concerns Connected to Administrator Raises?

Earlier this month, ELi reported on the East Lansing school district’s plan to eliminate a third grade classroom at Red Cedar Elementary and the early dismissal of the district’s director of health and safety. Several readers reached out, asking us to explore any connections between signs of a struggling budget and raises that Superintendent Dori Leyko and Deputy Superintendent Glenn Mitcham received last year.

ELPS recently took action to cut costs, but Superintendent Dori Leyko told ELi she is not concerned about the district’s financial standing – as ELPS still holds a healthy amount of reserve funds. 

Additionally, ELPS Board of Education President Chris Martin clarified that raises were given to top administrators to keep salaries competitive with other districts and retain the district’s top employees. 

In June 2024, the school board presented Leyko with a five year contract — two years before her contract was set to expire — that will raise her yearly salary to $235,000 from the $154,000 she was offered in 2021.

Deputy Superintendent Glenn Mitcham’s July 2024 contract gave him a salary of $175,000 and yearly raises that will bring his pay to $196,965 at the end of the five-year term. 

Martin also serves as chair of the board’s personnel committee. He said the raises were necessitated by rising school administrator compensation in neighboring districts.

Okemos’ John Hood, for example, received a 38% raise the same year, increasing his salary to more than $240,000, the Lansing State Journal reported.

Martin also said that the administrators did not come up with the amounts or even request increases; each raise originated with the personnel committee, and were approved by the school board.

“Dori’s most recent evaluations have been highly effective [ratings],” Martin said, “and she has another one scheduled for the end of this month. Both she and Glenn have had excellent reviews and gone beyond [expectations] since the days of the pandemic.”

Martin said the raises might keep Leyko and Mitcham from moving to positions outside of the district.

Discussion about administrators’ 2024 contracts and raises come as the district is negotiating new contracts with two of its employee unions (teachers and administrative assistants), with negotiations with the third union (paraprofessionals) to begin this summer. ELi spoke with Leyko and Mitcham about budget concerns in the district and their thoughts on critiques about their most recent contracts.

“I’m not concerned [about the district’s financial standing] at this point,” Leyko said. “We’ll wait and see what our audit looks like here in August to see [where we stand]. 

“The original budget that the board approved was a draw of $1.9 million from our fund balance,” she continued. “After the first budget revision, it was down to $1.2 million.”

The fund balance Leyko refers to is akin to a district savings account that can be drawn on when revenue doesn’t meet expenditures. Board of Education Treasurer Kath Edsall told ELi that ELPS has a $14.8 million fund balance at the end of the ‘24-’25 school year, a 25% fund balance-to-expenditures ratio. 

“We have a really healthy fund balance,” Leyko said. “We are working, actually, to bring that down. A lot of that is a result of COVID and ESSER [Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief] funds.”

Leyko said the political climate makes the district slightly more hesitant to spend down its reserve funds because of threats to eliminate federal funding. 

“The one thing we can’t do,” she said, “we can’t reduce fund balance by adding to our budget deficit with ongoing costs, because eventually those don’t go away, and the fund balance money will go away. So we have to be really strategic in how we spend that down.”

ELi asked the administrators if they wanted to weigh-in on the question of their raises.

“For the superintendent role,” Leyko said, “the market has changed significantly over the last year or two. I think you probably saw some of that with John Hood in Okemos. This raise for me was a significant raise, but last year, in my seventh year, I was making $175,000. I think the board looked at recalibrating the position, both mine and Glenn’s, and I think they also… [had] a strong desire on the board to make our salaries competitive enough for us to want to stay.

“I think they recognize that the tenure and leadership trickles down to work and advances what you can do, that if there’s a lot of turnover in leadership, you’re kind of starting over.”

The deputy superintendent added his own thoughts.

“I just want to make it clear that unlike John Hood, neither of us approached the board about our salaries or contracts,” Mitcham said. “That was something that the board initiated. And to Dori’s point about tenure, I’m finishing my eighth year as well and I don’t know a lot of deputy [superintendents] or assistant [superintendents], after they’ve done it for a few years, [who] don’t start looking for superintendent jobs.

“To Dori’s point, I think our board recognized the momentum that we’ve had with having the same folks in place. As soon as you change a [superintendent] or deputy [superintendent] you’re kind of restarting again, and it takes a long time to get things rolling in the same direction.”