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Superintendent's car allowance at issue
By ROBERT KING
© St. Petersburg Times, For $800 a month, a car enthusiast can own his own BMW. For most of the people in Hernando County, $800 a month would cover their monthly house payment with enough left to pay the power bill. For $800 a month, the school district can pay the wages of a full-time teacher's aide, a school bus driver or a cafeteria worker. And, under the contract the School Board gave Wendy Tellone last month, $800 a month is the car allowance the Hernando County schools may soon be paying their superintendent. Tellone's $90,000 base salary is lower, in some cases much lower, than that of superintendents in other counties. But what jumps out like a chrome hood ornament to some people is the cash allowance she stands to get for transportation that is included in her contract. Specifically, the contract says Tellone will get $800 a month or the equivalent of what it cost to provide a car to her predecessor, John Sanders -- whichever amount is less. Nearly a month into Tellone's tenure, it isn't clear what the amount will be. Finance director Carol MacLeod said she hasn't had time to figure out Sanders' monthly car costs. Other issues have been more pressing, she said. MacLeod hopes to get to it soon. Tellone says that, based on some preliminary numbers MacLeod has shown her, it's possible that Sanders' monthly expenses might have exceeded $800, meaning the district will save money under her contract's $800 cap on the car allowance. Either way, MacLeod and the three board members who voted for Tellone's contract -- Jim Malcolm, John Druzbick and Robert Wiggins -- say the $800 monthly car allowance is reasonable. And if the amount is less than $800, that's what the district will pay. At worst, they say the district will spend no more for Tellone's car allowance than what it spent on Sanders, who left to become the superintendent in Lee County. All of them insist that once you toss in car payments, insurance costs, routine maintenance and mileage reimbursements, it's easy to see how $800 a month can be gobbled up. "An $800 car payment would be insane," MacLeod said. "But that's not just the car payment. It's everything involved." Still, even some of the board members who voted Tellone into office say they have caught some grief from Hernando residents who see an $800-a-month car allowance as exorbitant. "Several people have said, "I support you all the way (with hiring Tellone), but this $800-a-month car allowance . . . ,' " Wiggins said. "People are having a hard time swallowing that." Even so, Wiggins said people seem to understand once he explains all the maintenance, insurance and fuel costs that are included in the allowance. But School Board member Sandra Nicholson, who voted against Tellone's contract and objects to the car allowance, says people she talks with aren't easily convinced that $800 is reasonable. Nicholson said people are asking her if the car allowance was just a way to sweeten Tellone's contract beyond its $90,000 base. "It's possible that we're all getting paranoid over nothing because we haven't been given a final figure," Nicholson said. But she is convinced that if it costs $800 a month -- $9,600 a year -- to keep the superintendent on the road, there must be a problem with how the school district maintains its vehicles. "I think it's excessive," she said. Even Nicholson and Gail Coleman, the other board member who voted against Tellone's contract, agree with others on the board that, given the size of Hernando County and the wide scattering of its schools, a superintendent needs transportation. Sanders, the district's superintendent for six years, drove a Dodge Intrepid that the district owned, insured, maintained and fueled. But when she was hired, Tellone opted to drive her own car, a 1997 Jaguar, and to take the monthly allowance. The Dodge Intrepid has been passed on to facilities director Graydon Howe, she said. For Tellone, the decision boiled down to sticking with a car she is comfortable with and to avoiding the hassle of paperwork involved in driving a company car. "I like driving my own car," she said. Some board members, including Wiggins and Malcolm, say the car allowance will actually benefit the school district by taking away the district's liability for any accidents that may occur while the superintendent is driving around on district business. "If it's our car, we're liable. If it's her car, she's liable," said Malcolm, the board chairman, who negotiated the contract. "To me it's a good deal." Car allowances for superintendents aren't unheard of. Nor are they universal. Sanders was given an $800-a-month car allowance when he took the job in Lee County, a district nearly four times larger than Hernando. Charlotte County, based in Port Charlotte and with roughly the same number of students as Hernando, pays its superintendent a $650 a month car allowance. The St. Johns County school district, based in St. Augustine and slightly larger than Hernando, offers no car allowance. Closer to home, Pasco and Citrus counties provide cars for their superintendents. Citrus' David Hickey drives a Ford Escort; Pasco's John Long drives a Caprice station wagon. Both counties let voters elect their superintendents while Hernando's is School Board-appointed. All things considered, Hernando County could be paying a lot more money for a superintendent. Sanders would have earned a base salary of at least $100,000 this year, three more weeks of vacation and 30 more days of sick leave than Tellone. Of course, Sanders has 12 years of experience as a superintendent. Tellone has none. But even a year ago, the average salary for a Florida superintendent was nearly $105,000. If Tellone were elected, the state would mandate that her base pay be $101,000 this year, Malcolm said. Why, then, has Tellone's car allowance struck such a chord, given that board members contend she will wind up with the same travel support that Sanders enjoyed last year? Druzbick says it's because there was never a dollar amount attached to Sanders' contract, just vague wording about the provision of a car. The "$800 car allowance" caught people's attention, he said. Malcolm thinks the car allowance controversy is getting more mileage with Tellone simply because one board member -- Coleman -- chose to make an issue of it when it came time to approve Tellone's contract. When one board member squawks, the public takes notice, he said. "To me," Malcolm said, "it's a nonissue." - Staff writer Robert King covers education in Hernando County and can be reached at 754-6127. Send e-mail to rking@sptimes.com.
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