ARTICLE ABOUT HUGH HAYES GETTING A $8,000 RAISE:

Article from the Katy Times 1992

Written by Ken Steger

HAYES GETS $8,000 RAISE

Trustees vote for 3-year extension of KISD superintendent's contract

Katy Independent School District Superintendent Hugh Hayes received a vote of confidence from the school board Wednesday night and an $8,000 raise.

By a 6-1 margin the trustees voted to extend Hayes' contract an additional three years through 1995 and to raise his salary from the current $107,000 level to $115,000 per year.

After returning from a 2 1/2 hour executive session, board president Stanley Thompson praised Hayes' efforts during the past year, describing the superintendent's work as "outstanding."

But trustee Mary McGarr, who cast the lone dissenting vote, said Hayes' job performance is not the issue.

"I find that I will be unable to vote in favor of this request and in doing so I do not wish to be interpreted as being against anything the superintendent does," McGarr said.  "As a matter of fact, I am very happy with his performance.  I think he is leading our school district in the right direction and doing a very adequate job of that."

"I am sorry this [giving large salary increases] is the only way we have of displaying our approval of what he does.  I do have philosophical differences with a salary increase."

When Thompson asked McGarr to explain the "philosophical differences," McGarr responded, "I have concerns that the increasing amount of money that is being paid to superintendents everywhere is getting out of hand."

"It is to the point where public officials who are paid with tax money and those of us who are elected to control the tax money have an obligation to make sure salaries are kept within reason, and I don't believe this has actually happened here," McGarr said.

McGarr noted that she also has a problem with granting superintendents three-year contracts instead of on an annual basis as teachers are given, but she did not elaborate further.

Hayes, 51, is beginning his fourth year as KISD's superintendent.  Prior to this position here, he served three years as superintendent of the Ector County Independent School District in Odessa.

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Down the road, after this superintendent was given the big raise and the extended contract for three years, the school board had to deal with his putting a copy of the actual penal code on lewdness in the Discipline Management Handbook that was handed out to every school child in August of 1993.  Go to EDUCATION/ "Sex With a Chicken" elsewhere on this site to read the articles that were written on the matter.

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The usual action when a superintendent becomes persona non grata in a school district is to buy him/her out.  Unfortunately for Superintendent Hayes, Katy ISD school boards had just bought out two superintendents' contracts in the previous ten years or so, and the current board did not want to endure the criticism associated with another buyout.   So the Board just didn't renew the superintendent's contract nor did they keep increasing his salary.  Those two actions, once they became public, sent a clear message that it was time to move on.  And that is what Hugh Hayes did.