LaMont Cole could start his new job as superintendent of the East Baton Rouge Parish school system making $285,000 a year, plus he could earn as much as $68,400 more in incentive pay.
That’s what's outlined in , which the parish . If approved, the proposed contract would take effect right away and expire June 30, 2028.
The highest paid superintendent in Louisiana is James Grey, to run the Jefferson Parish school system, the biggest school district in the state.
Cole’s proposed $285,000 a year starting salary is $30,000 more than the $255,000 a year his predecessor Sito Narcisse made during his three years on the job. But it is much less than what Narcisse sought last year when he strove unsuccessfully to stay as superintendent. Narcisse’s called for an annual 4% pay raise and would have made him the top paid superintendent in the state.
Cole would receive no percentage-based pay raise in his contract.
Unlike Narcisse, though, Cole would be eligible for much smaller $1,000 annual step increases awarded to top district administrators. That would increase Cole’s starting salary from $285,000 to $288,000 a year by 2027.
Overall, the new contract represents a shift in focus from paying a superintendent more to stay in the job to paying more based on performance.
The six-page draft contract has been negotiated over the past week by Cole, Board President Carla Powell-Lewis and Vice President Patrick Martin V. Negotiations began after the board on July 24 unanimously selected the metro councilman and veteran educator to serve as the district’s next top leader.
Serving as East Baton Rouge Parish superintendent is a big career leap for Cole. He has no previous experience as superintendent or a top administrator for a school district.
The was with the parish school system, serving as principal of Capitol and Park Forest middle schools.
Cole has spent the past 13 years as chief academic officer of CSAL Inc., a Baton Rouge-based charter school network. East Baton Rouge has 80-plus schools and more than 40,000 students, while CSAL operates four schools that serve about 3,000 students.
Narcisse had never been a district superintendent when he was hired in January 2021, but he had been a top-level administrator in several districts before coming to Baton Rouge.
Overall, Cole’s package is not as generous as the compensation package Narcisse negotiated last year. That failed when the board voted in December not to renew Narcisse’s contract. Six weeks later, Narcisse agreed to a voluntary buyout.
If he’d been renewed, Narcisse pay would have jumped immediately from $255,000 to $310,000 a year, a $55,000 pay raise, Thanks to automatic 4% annual pay raises, Narcisse’s base salary would have grown a lot subsequently, maxing out at $362,656 by 2027 — almost $108,000 more than he was making previously.
Cole’s proposed starting salary of $285,000 is roughly equivalent to what Narcisse would have made by now if Narcisse had received 3% annual pay raises.
Cole’s proposed contract also jettisons a generous tax annuity that was meant to persuade Narcisse to stay another four years on the job. Narcisse stood to make an additional $134,273 via that annuity.
Cole instead can make substantially more if his performance warrants it. It calls for paying Cole 2% of his salary for each performance target he meets or exceeds. That works out to $5,700 per target. A revised version of Cole's contrast was posted Thursday afternoon and it included 12 10 targets. Achieving all of them would generate an additional $68,400 a year for Cole.
By contrast, Narcisse made at most $10,000 more based on his performance. His proposed renewal contract would have increased his maximum performance pay to $20,000 a year. Narcisse had 10 targets he was tasked with meeting.
requires that public school superintendents who are overseeing districts with an academic letter grade of a C, D, or F must include academic performance targets in their employment contracts. East Baton Rouge Parish has a C letter grade.
The school board on Thursday is also set to consider an employment contract for Adam Smith. After six months as interim superintendent and a failed bid to win the job permanently, the board last week hired him as deputy superintendent.
Cole’s proposed contract calls for him to evaluate and supervise Smith. No draft of a contract for Smith is as yet available.
As interim superintendent, Smith has been making the same as Narcisse made, the equivalent of $255,000 a year. Smith’s previous job as associate superintendent paid him $134,732 a year.
