Kiski Area School Board shoots down plan to officially realign administrator's duties, increase their pay

A plan realigning Kiski Area School District’s administrative positions that included salary increases has been shot down by the school board.

Kiski Area Superintendent Misty Slavic pitched the plan as a way to balance responsibilities among administrators and make them more effective.

The board, however, did not agree Wednesday and killed the plan, 7-2.

“We are not adding administrative positions,” Slavic said prior to the board meeting. “We are down one that I don’t plan on replacing.”

That position was occupied by John Tedorski, a technology specialist and the district’s director of safety and security. He retired in May when a job with the state arose, according to Slavic.

With the school year looming last summer, Slavic said, district officials decided to fill the vacuum by assigning the safety director’s responsibilities to high school Principal Chad Roland on a trial basis.

“We believed he was the best person for the job,” Slavic said. “However, we wanted to see if it would work with him as high school principal and director of safety.”

But with half the school year gone, she said, it became apparent Roland was being pulled in too many directions.

In addition to those concerns, Slavic said there are changes in math and science curricula mandated by the state throughout the entire K-12 program. She said it’s too difficult for one person, director of curriculum and instruction/federal programs Emily Mather, to teach those changes to the entire faculty.

That prompted the proposed realignment plan.

Under that plan, Roland would become assistant to the superintendent for secondary education and safety. Mather’s title would change to assistant to the superintendent for elementary education, federal programs and data.

“We went to splitting the curriculum director into two positions — elementary and secondary,” Slavic said. “By doing that, we can now focus on areas of (student) need.”

But that move would create a vacancy for a high school principal.

“The current assistant principal, Matt Smith, will become the interim high school principal, and Dan Smith would be moved into the interim assistant high school principal position,” she said. “Dan Smith is principal of Kiski Area’s cyber school and director of technology education, instructing teachers on how to integrate technology in the classroom.”

Smith would continue to hold both those positions, too.

Finally, business manager Richard Liberto would be made assistant to the superintendent for finance and operations, taking on additional duties regarding the district’s buildings and grounds.

“What we are doing is reallocating responsibilities and obviously when you give someone more responsibilities you have to pay them more,” Slavic said.

The plan included these proposed salaries for the five administrators: Roland, $154,000; Mather, $130,000; Liberto, $130,000; Matt Smith, $135,000; and Dan Smith, $115,500.

The district did not respond to repeated requests from the Tribune-Review for information on the administrators’ current salaries.

The website OpenGovPa.org, sponsored by the Commonwealth Foundation, tracks public payrolls in the state. It listed the administrators’ 2022-23 salaries as follows:

Roland, $143,613; Mather, $110,000; Matt Smith, $121,720; Dan Smith, $106,090.

Liberto, according to school district records, was hired May 15, 2023, at a salary of $121,000.

It all would come out to an increase of $20,000 (18.2%) for Mather; $13,280 (10.9%) for Matt Smith; $9,410 (8.8%) for Dan Smth; $9,000 (7.4%) for Liberto; and $10,387 (7.2%) for Roland.

“It’s still cheaper than paying for a whole other person with salary and benefits,” Slavic said.

She pointed out that those increases combined, which add up to $62,077, would still be less than the $120,428 Tedorski was earning. That savings is even greater if you add the cost of Tedorski’s health care premiums.

But only two school directors wanted to go along with the superintendent’s realignment plan: Todd Sterlitz and John Shaner.

Board members opposed to it were Melissa Kowalkowski, Kathleen Snyder, Becky Culp, Jenna Rowe, Amy Halter, Dawn Mellinger and Nicole Kamer. Snyder may have signaled how the vote would go in discussing the proposal at the board’s Feb. 14 information meeting.

“You are giving them extremely large increases now, and then in July they are going to get another increase,” Snyder said. “Can we sustain this as a district? Can we sustain this going forward?”

Board members and a few district residents mentioned the district’s current high school renovations project and last year’s tax increase as other considerations.

Snyder, Culp and Kowalkowski declined comment on their vote following Wednesday’s meeting.

“It’s the wrong timing,” Mellinger said, noting that it would be happening the middle of the school year.

Kamer agreed, saying, “I just didn’t want to do it at this time. We still don’t have a budget for next (school) year.”

Asked if she can make do with the current situation until the end of the school year, Slavic replied, “We don’t have a choice but to make do through the end of the year.

“We’ll regroup.”