Schools Chancellor Harold Levy for the first time will reward 1,368 principals and other administrators with $13.5 million in merit pay for boosting student performance, the supervisors union said yesterday.
The hikes of up to $15,000 were awarded to more than 25 percent of school supervisors.
The salary boost also counts toward a supervisors’ pension.
Veteran principals earn up to $130,000.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani negotiated the merit-pay plan in exchange for principals giving up their tenure rights.
“The people who got raises feel great. The ones who didn’t feel rotten,” said Jill Levy, president of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators.
But Levy worries that the bump in salary and pensions will encourage 1,000 of the best and most experienced administrators to retire.
“We are concerned that we lose these effective leaders in these schools because the performance increase pumps up their pensions substantially,” she said.
Principals are covered by several different systems. Under the most generous one, some would be able to base their pension on their higher, final-year salary.
Levy said she wants to propose a new state law to allow administrators to base their pension on the highest salary they made in any of the final three years.
Former Deputy Mayor Tony Coles – Giuliani’s point man on education – applauded the implementation of merit pay.
“Rewarding administrators on how their schools perform is the right thing to do. It begins to focus the system on student performance, which should be the most important priority,” Coles said.