NORTH SMITHFIELD — Employees in the School Department were the top-paid employees in town government in 2006, with the lowest paid school administrator topping the town’s highest paid administrators.

A survey of the town’s 2006 municipal and school payroll — part of a statewide examination of public employee pay in calendar 2006 — showed the school system’s top salaried personnel pretty much followed the department’s organization chart, with Supt. Stephen F. Lindberg at the top with a 2006 salary of $109,902. He was followed by the principals and associate principal in the district’s three schools, two central office administrators and the district’s athletic director.

The two teachers to make the list were music director Fritz A. Benz and history teacher and social studies department Chairman Harold V. Demers, coming in eighth and ninth, with salaries of $79,328 and $78,315, respectively.

But even the lowest of the School Department’s 2006 top 10, athletic director and teacher Nancy L. Dowding at $77,853, was still better than anyone in town government. There, Police Chief Steven Reynolds was the top-paid town government employee, with $66,184. Town Administrator Robert B. Lowe was second with $63,407, and he was followed closely by town Finance Director Jill A. Gemma with $63,094.

As has been the case in other municipalities examined by The Journal, the remaining members of the municipal top 10 were all in the Police Department, where overtime pay provided boosts to department members’ base salaries. As administrators, Reynolds, Lowe and Gemma do not get overtime.

Without the overtime, Police Department members in the municipal operations top 10 would have had salaries that ranged from $38,000 to $46,000 for the year. But overtime, in some cases as much as $12,000 to $13,000, provided a significant boost. Capt. Denis L. Smith, who was with the department in 2006 but retired in the middle of 2007, had a base salary of $46,792, which was augmented by $7,953 in overtime to net him $56,945. The top overtime recipients in calendar 2006 were Detective Tim Lafferty with $12,043 (for an overall total for the year of $56,850) and Patrolman Robert H. Nolette with $13,466, for a total 2006 pay level of $54,176.

Though the school district pay levels exceeded the town government pay scales, compared to other school districts in the state, North Smithfield was in the lower end of the spectrum.

The district’s 2006 payroll was $12.62 million for a school system of 1,886 students. When that payroll cost was spread out on a per student basis, it came to $6,692 per student. That was the seventh lowest payroll in dollars-per-student ratio among the state’s 36 school districts. The lowest in calendar 2006 was Cumberland at $5,591, up to the highest, Block Island’s at $14,581, a figure distorted by the fact that it has so few students, 147, to spread its payroll amongst. Taking that system out of the mix left Newport at the top of the payroll in dollars per pupil list at $9,927.

Compiled by Paul Edward Parker

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

Source: Town of North Smithfield

Compiled by Paul Edward Parker

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

Source: North Smithfield School Dept.

jhill@projo.com