Salaries taking the hit

By ROBERT LINNEHAN | The Cherry Hill Sun
Heeding the call of Township Council to cut $2.5 million from its 2010–2011 budget, the Cherry Hill Board of Education announced the areas that would be reduced at a special action meeting last week.
The Board approved cuts in several areas, with salary reductions for district employees coming in at the highest with $600,000. Breakage — teachers retiring and being replaced with new teachers at lower salaries — was second with $500,000.
Administration reductions came in third at $294,000. Administration was a point of interest for several Council members and Mayor Bernie Platt, who criticized the district’s number of administrators and the salary costs to keep them in the district.
Council actually suggested reducing administration costs by $800,000.
“But, even as good as those teachers are, they are overshadowed by the cost of the administration in our school district. I got the emails, letters and phone calls complaining about the number of assistant principals, the salaries of the administration and the amount of non-teacher support staff,” Platt said at the township public hearing two weeks ago. “Our superintendent makes almost $100,000 more than the governor of this state.”
See this week’s print edition of The Sun for the full story.