Mpls. schools chief gives $17,000 in bonuses to 2 officials

Minneapolis schools Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson has given out bonuses to two district officials, using authority she was given two years ago following controversial retroactive salary increases in 2011.

In contrast to the $270,000 in permanent retroactive raises for 35 top people after a 2011 compensation study, this year's two awards are bonuses that don't get added to base pay and total $17,000.

The bonuses, given last month to chief executive officer Michael Goar for $10,000 and to district lobbyist Jim Grathwol for $7,000, were the only two given to a group of 55 in the district's leadership.

After the controversy over the retroactive raises, the board in mid-2012 granted Johnson sole discretion over whether to grant annual performance bonuses to top district personnel on at-will contracts. Moreover, it imposed no explicit requirement that she notify the board.

Goar, hired in June, was given a midyear performance bonus of $10,000. He is eligible to earn up to $20,000 for his first full year on the job, atop a salary of $175,000.

According to Goar and district spokesman Stan Alleyne, the base pay was a compromise when Goar was hired from the $185,000-a-year job he had recently taken as the staff chief at Generation Next, a year-old collaborative that seeks to close the achievement gap between white and minority students. Goar said the district pursued him to fill its No. 2 position, and he was willing to take a pay cut if he had the chance to offset it with a performance-driven bonus.

Alleyne said a major part of that work is to develop a system in which the performance goals for district leaders, those not in union bargaining units, are tied to the goals that the school board has set for Johnson. She intends to institute a broader bonus system based on those goals for her leadership team in the coming year.

Grathwol was given his bonus, Johnson said in an interview, because at $111,766 he was at the top of his pay range, and outside employers were asking if he wanted to work for them. "There are people who would love to have Jim Grathwol come to work for them," she said, describing the district's sole lobbyist since 1998 as a key employee.

Johnson said that her top administrators are hired at a specific spot on the pay range for their job duties but don't advance periodically up that scale. Those pay ranges were set by the 2011 study. She noted that several high-ranking employees have left in the past year. Making bonus money available for performance may help the district retain some leaders, she said.

The bonuses were awarded just as Alberto Monserrate was stepping down as board chairman and being replaced by Richard Mammen. Monserrate said he wasn't surprised by the bonuses and has long known that Johnson wanted a performance bonus system. Mammen, who was on vacation for part of January, said initially that he wasn't aware of the bonuses but later added he's satisfied that Monserrate was apprised. Other board members also didn't recall being told.

Regardless, Mammen said, "Transparency and trust is very important in any organization, and when people are rewarded for performance, I hope the superintendent would share it with us."