Glowing Evaluation Gets Payzant 26% Pay Hike

San Diego city schools Supt. Tom Payzant was rewarded Tuesday with a new four-year contract, containing a 26% salary increase as a result of a glowing evaluation given him by the Board of Education.

“The Board of Education applauds you for your superior performance during the 1987-88 school year,” the five-member body told Payzant in a four-page evaluation summarized by President Dorothy Smith during Tuesday’s regular meeting.

Payzant’s three-year contract expires Nov. 1. Under his new contract, Payzant’s $102,093 base salary will immediately increase to $105,000, with raises to $110,000 in November, 1989, to $117,500 in November, 1990, and to $129,000 in November, 1991.

Payzant also will receive yearly increases in his current $5,500 expense account and $8,000 auto allowance.

Payzant has headed the nation’s eighth-largest urban school district, with 116,000 students, since November, 1982. The Massachusetts native previously headed school systems in Oklahoma City and Eugene, Ore.

The board praised Payzant for his work in all areas, from curriculum planning to integration programs to restructuring experiments at individual schools to leadership in achieving voter approval this month of a school-construction tax. The board particularly singled out Payzant’s handling of last year’s budget crisis and collective bargaining difficulties, which resulted in only a 2.5% raise for the district’s 11,000 employees, including 6,000 teachers.

The board’s action clearly pleased Payzant, who said he does not regret “for one moment” his decision last year to eliminate himself as one of three finalists for the top schools superintendent position in Los Angeles.

But Payzant said that while he is proud of his record, he is “not at all smug and complacent” about the future. The district continues to face major challenges in getting more black and Latino students to succeed in school, particularly in light of continued tight state education funding.