COVENTRY — Former Town Manager Francis A. Frobel was the highest-paid municipal employee on the town’s payroll for 2006, but it was a lump-sum severance payout of $158,693 rather than his base salary that catapulted him to the top, town officials said.

Overall, police officers and school administrators are among the highest-paid employees in Coventry, according to a Providence Journal analysis of municipal pay data recently obtained from school and town officials. The data is based on salaries paid between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2006. The top-10 list for school and nonschool employee was assembled from an employees pool of 1,445 people who were paid in that calendar year.

The information compiled reveals that 6 of the top 10 highest-paid non-school employees in 2006 were police personnel. Rounding out that list is former Public Works Director Sheila Barrett, who was fired last month; Finance Director Warren West, and Paul K. Sprague, who is currently acting town manager but at the time was the human resources director.

Frobel, who resigned in April 2005, surpassed everyone because the severance package he received in 2006 included compensation for 714 hours of unused vacation time and 2,040 hours of unused sick time, according to West. Those hours had been accrued over his 19-year tenure as town manager. Sprague said Frobel rarely took vacations.

There was no provision in his contract that kept Frobel from being paid for the unused time.

“Whenever he left, he would have been entitled to that money,” West said. “The ultimate decision didn’t take place until the beginning of the [following] year. It was a severance package. To indicate that it was his compensation for the town manager is very misleading.”

The large severance package also made Frobel among the highest-paid municipal employees in the state in 2006, coming in at number eight. In addition to the unused sick and vacation time payout, Frobel received the equivalent of one year’s pay — $104,275 — in a lump-sum payout, for a total severance package of $263,000 over the two-year period.

The pay figures from the Journal’s compilation do not include the cost of fringe benefits. They do include longevity bonuses, extra pay from holding more than one job and overtime.

Three of the six police officers on the list retired in either late 2006 or in 2007; a fourth, Police Chief Brian J. O’Rourke, who earned $96,334 in 2006, retired on Jan. 31of this year. But most are lower ranking officers whose salaries were higher than O’Rourke’s in 2006 because of overtime and detail pay, according to Ronald DaSilva, who succeeded O’Rourke as chief.

DaSilva said mandatory minimum staffing requirements require that shifts be covered, and the average officer earns a lot of overtime. He added that many officers work complete additional shifts, which also accounts for the high gross salaries.

“It’s skewed because it’s not base salary. These people didn’t make this money in a 40-hour week. That’s some serious hours. We have only so many bodies to fill those positions, whether it’s military [leave], illness, vacation. If an officer is not here, his work does not sit and pile up. It has to be covered,” DaSilva said. “We’re a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week operation. If not [for people working overtime], we would have to hire a lot more people.”

With detail shifts, the vendor requesting police service for security or traffic control is responsible for paying the officer for the time worked, but first the wage appears on the police officer’s wage and tax statement (W-2) form, DaSilva said. Then the vendor reimburses the town so the compensation does not come from taxpayers.

Most of the detail and overtime requests are filled by officers who volunteer for the extra work. “If we can get people willing to work we are much better off,” DaSilva said.

Sprague held three municipal posts simultaneously in 2006: head of human resources, acting town planner and head of the Emergency Management Agency. At the time, according to the data, Sprague received one salary, in the amount of $88,579, which includes reimbursement because he waived his town insurance. He now holds five town jobs, including acting town manager and, since Barrett’s departure, head of public works. On the schools side, Supt. Kenneth R. DiPietro easily tops the employees list with a gross salary of $123,324 in 2006, according to data supplied to the Journal. For the current fiscal year, DiPietro is paid $134,000.

The bulk of the schools top-10 list comprises principals and assistant principals who are administrators with two-year contracts, according to Anthony Ferrucci, the schools’ director of administration. The contracts vary from person to person but generally run on a fiscal year cycle from July 1 through June 30. There are 22 administrators, who are nonunion employees.

In general, salaries for administrators are on based on a School Committee-set addition to the pay for a top-scale teacher, DiPietro said. Salaries are also based on the degree of responsibility an individual bears beginning with the high school principal, who receives the highest salary.

In Coventry, administrators include the superintendent, assistant superintendents, principals, assistant principals, central office administrators, the facilities director and the grants administrator.

Teachers, who are unionized, work 186 days a year while the average administrator works 220 days a year, DiPietro said. Teachers work roughly seven-hour day, when after-school activities are factored in, while administrators generally work an eight-hour day. “They are paid comparable [to what they do], but the per-diem rate is lower for the administrator than the teacher,” DiPietro said.

The superintendent works a 260-day year, excluding weekends, but works at the pleasure of the School Committee and can be be required on weekends, holidays or at any time he or she is needed.

Michael J. Hobin, the principal of Coventry High School, which enrolled 1,800 students in 2006, is second on the list of top-paid school employees.

Vincent Hawkins, the assistant superintendent, is third on the schools list, making $102,586 in 2006. He retired at the end of 2006. Michael Convery, who was appointed to succeed Hawkins in July 2007, was fourth on the 2006 top-pay list, with his salary of $101,284 as principal of Alan Shawn Feinstein Middle School. John T. Canole was fifth for his roles as head of the Coventry Career and Technical Center and as one of Coventry High School’s four assistant principals. Elizabeth A. Marquis, a former assistant principal at Coventry High, who also retired in 2006, was the sixth-highest.

Rounding out the top 10 are principals of the elementary schools, including Janice L. Sullivan at Western Coventry; Denise A. Richtarik, at Tiogue; Frances E. Murphy at Hopkins Hill and Donna M. Raptakis at Washington Oak.

Compiled by Paul Edward Parker

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

Source: Town of Coventry

Compiled by Paul Edward Parker

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

Source: Coventry School Dept.

lsparks@projo.com