It's possible that a number of superintendent base salaries may have changed since the report, but some data regarding that was not immediately available for comparing.

Hindt, who is scheduled to begin work at the district on Aug. 1, is a 1983 graduate of KISD's James E. Taylor High School and has worked at Allen ISD since 2014. Hindt also has served as the superintendent for Stafford Municipal School District in Fort Bend County and was also once an assistant superintendent at Fort Bend ISD.

Hindt's contract approval also comes at a time when some districts such as Katy face a harsher financial situation.

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Weeks ago, the district's chief financial officer, Christopher Smith, said the district will be operating with less funding next year than its approximate $785 million revenue for 2015-2016. The shortfall is due to the district receiving less in state funds because of increased property values, though it's unclear now how much less the amount will be.

The funding issues are even more worrisome after the Texas Supreme Court ruled in May that the state's public school funding system, while deeply flawed, is constitutional. The decision came after years of litigation that began when about 600 school districts across Texas, including KISD, sued the state contesting the state's funding system.

"If Dr. Hindt really wanted this opportunity to come to Katy ISD and become the new superintendent, I believe the district could have offered him less money," said Diane Wilson, president at the Association of Texas Professional Educators Katy chapter and a retired educator who worked at KISD for 28 years.

Wilson also said superintendents are overpaid while teachers at all school districts are underpaid, an argument that has long existed nationwide in public education.

In response, Fox said the district pays its educators competitively and likely will have a teacher pay increase for the upcoming school year, despite the tighter budget.

Hindt also will receive a pay increase each time teacher salaries increase, according to his contract.

But Fox argued that the wage is justified for the job and doable within KISD's budget while also stating that none of the district's larger programs will be cut.

"We're challenged to keep the budget very tight," Fox said, "and that's not unique to Katy ISD."

Using the data from the TEA report, Hindt's base salary is $75,750 more than the $299,250 base pay reported for Charles Dupre, the superintendent at neighboring Fort Bend ISD. FBISD, like KISD, has about 73,000 students.

At Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, another neighboring suburban district, superintendent John Henry earns the most in the state, cashing in a base pay of $383,402, according to the report. Cy-Fair ISD has an enrollment of 113,936 students.

The report lists Boerne ISD as the highest paying district, but TEA says that district's data was misreported.

The report also says Hindt made a base salary of $253,759 at Allen ISD last year, which is $121,241 less than the base salary stated on his KISD contract.

Comments

MELISSA

Why is this journalist intentionally misleading readers with this headline? This headline and the link referencing "top three" are in fact completely inaccurate based solely on the information the journalist himself provides to the reader, but I guess he expects the reader to do his homework for him while he benefits from a click bait headline.

The salary data he provides from the TEA does not include additional benefits enjoyed by many superintendents. These benefits can include items such as bonuses, housing allowances, car allowances and travel expenses. In some cases these benefits can add six figures to a superintendents pay. If one were to only compare base salaries, as this author did, they would be missing a very big part of the picture.

Dr. Hindt’s contract does not include any of these additional benefits. We do not have to sit down with a calculator and hammer through pages of confusing documents to find the bottom line. What you see is what you get. Dr. Hindt should be applauded for the transparency of his contract.

If this journalist truly wanted to begin an honest discussion on superintendent pay, he would have done his homework and provided readers with the facts instead of half-truths. Instead he draws a conclusion in his headline and admits in the body he doesn’t have all the information. This article is a perfect example of very irresponsible, lazy journalism