Richland School Board renews superintendent’s contract, but not before cutting her 7% bonus
The Richland School Board voted Tuesday night to renew Superintendent Shelley Redinger’s contract, but only after killing a performance bonus clause at the last minute that could pay her an extra 7%.
The board voted 4-0 to approve the contract. Board member Semi Bird abstained from the vote.
It’s unclear where the motion came from to strike the clause from her contract at the last minute, but board member Rick Jansons made the motion immediately following a hastily-called 30-minute executive session at the end of Tuesday’s meeting.
The contract was originally part of the board’s consent agenda that night, but Bird asked to have the item removed from the list of action items that get voted on without discussion.
“I think we need to have a discussion on that, based on what I read,” he said during the nearly four-hour meeting.
The paragraph removed from her contract read: “The board agrees that, annually, the superintendent may also receive additional compensation in an amount not to exceed seven percent (7%) of her annual base salary, as defined in section 6, based upon the achievement by the superintendent of mutually agreed upon performance goals and objectives.”
Still, Redinger’s new three-year contract will pay her an annual salary of $198,900 beginning July 1.
That’s a $3,900 increase from the 2020 contract she accepted when she came to Richland from Spokane.
Prior to coming to Richland, Redinger made about $85,000 more in salary as the head of Spokane School District, where she worked for about 12 years.
She’ll remain the highest-paid superintendent in the Tri-Cities. Richland is the smallest Tri-Cities school district, with an average student enrollment this year of about 14,000 students.
The Richland School Board has been evaluating Redinger’s performance and negotiating her contract since at least April 21.
At least three closed-door executive sessions have been held on the topic, according to listed board agendas.
Redinger came under fire by some community after she closed schools for two days in February due to the school board abrupt decision to go against the governor’s mask mandate and making masks optional immediately.
Some in the community have called for her resignation since then. One board member even said she would “rather fire Shelley” than have kids go back to wearing masks.
Going “mask optional” would have violated the law and subjected the school district to deep cuts in state funding allocation, as well as fines.
“ ... (B)ringing children and staff back to schools, while knowingly violating the current mask mandate, would be unlawful, jeopardize district funding and insurance coverage and would be asking all RSD staff members to potentially risk their jobs,” she wrote in a statement at the time.
Redinger hiring
In 2020, Redinger was the third superintendent hired in two years to succeed retiring Superintendent Rick Schulte.
He planned to leave in July 2021, but that changed after a clash between teachers and incoming Superintendent Nicole MacTavish over potential cuts to special education. The school board ended up canceling her three-year contract.
Then the school board led a search that culminated with the choice of Mark Davidson from Medicine Hat School Division in Alberta, Canada, over two other contestants from Salt Lake City and Moses Lake.
When Davidson backed out of taking the job because of issues linked to COVID-19, the board went back to its search consultant to help find another candidate.
Redinger, who had started her teaching career in Richland, was on list of past candidates who had submitted applications.
Reporter Cameron Probert contributed to this report.
This story was originally published May 11, 2022 at 11:12 AM.
