The number of upstate school district employees earning six-figure salaries has climbed in the past five years by 48 percent, according to data released Thursday by an Albany think tank. 

The Empire Center for Public Policy posted information on its website — eeThroughNY.net — showing that the number of school employees earning $100,000 or more per year in districts outside New York City has increased from 32,914 in 2008-09 to 48,703 in 2013-14. 

The updated pay information covers a total of 367,867 upstate school salaries as reported to the New York State Retirement System for the 12-month period ending June 30 and to the New York state and Local Retirement System for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2014. The data does not reflect fringe benefit costs, including healthcare, pension contributions or other employee benefits. 

The data shows the highest paid school employee upstate — Riverhead Central Schools Assistant Superintendent Joseph Ogeka Jr. — was paid $376,340. No district employees from Niagara County appeared on the list of the 50 highest paid school employees statewide for 2013-14.

In the Western New York region, former Buffalo Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Pamela Brown topped the list of 20 highest paid public school employees with a salary of $226,355. Starpoint Central School District Superintendent C. Douglas Whalen had the highest salary among Niagara County districts at $203,276. Lewiston-Porter School District Superintendent R. Christopher Roser had the highest salary in the Falls area at $182,384, followed by Niagara-Wheatfield Superintendent Lynn Marie Fusco who was paid $169,792 and Niagara Falls City School District Superintendent Cynthia Bianco who earned $166,116. 

”Salaries as a whole? They’re high,” Niagara Falls school board President Russell Petrozzi said Thursday night. “But the job is important. We’re taking care of our youth and our future.

Petrozzi estimated since 2010, salaries in the Falls district are up 5 percent.

”Comparing us to other districts in the area, the superintendent’s salary, she’s responsible for double the kids, double the budget,” he said.  

Bianco also defended her salary Thursday night.

”This is my 49th year in education,” she said. “I think I’m getting what I should get. I hope that’s how the board perceives me, they’re my employers, so to speak, as is the public.

”I try and give 110-percent and I expect the same from all staff. They have good salaries just as I do, but I expect very much from them.”

Added Petrozzi, “We’re much more demanding of our people than we were five years ago. They’re doing more with less. There’s less people. I don’t feel ours are out of line with anybody else’s, compared to what they’re responsible for.”

© 2014 Niagara Gazette