Michele Voigt walked into Santa Barbara Unified’s board meeting Tuesday wondering why it was approving $150,000 in raises for cabinet members while the district was in a 4-year $60M deficit.
The board’s president, Bill Banning, believed she might’ve had the wrong idea.
But Michele was ultimately right. Board members did approve $150,000 in raises for district management, which includes cabinet members.
The truth was lost in translation. Banning attempted to discredit her claim because she had used the wrong word when referring to the cabinet.
“The public deserves clarity, not condescension,” Michele said to the News-Press after the meeting. “These are general admin raises—full stop.”
The board approved a $1,500 cost-of-living raise for its teachers and a 2.5% raise for “classified” workers, non-certificated employees like janitors and teaching aides.
Then, the board automatically approved the same $1,500 raise for district management, including its executive cabinet, principals and directors, as well as Superintendent Hilda Maldonado. Confidential workers also got the same 2.5% pay hike as regular classified workers.
The “me too” raises this year come out to $145,350 for management and $29,750 for confidential employees. Maldonado’s total compensation, including salary and benefits, is about $370,000 annually.
You get a check, everybody gets a check
“Me too” raises, which are in the contracts of SBUSD’s executive cabinet, stipulate that whenever teachers get raises, the cabinet automatically receives identical raises.
It’s because the cabinet and other district management, such as principals and directors, do not have a bargaining unit.
The same goes for confidential employees, who are classified workers dealing with confidential matters, such as administrative assistants and certain HR roles.
Their salary raises were lumped into one agreement because they are non-represented, said Conrad Tedeschi, the district’s assistant superintendent of business services.
It’s not uncommon for school district management and superintendents to automatically get raises whenever employees with bargaining units do.
According to an analysis from EdSource, a national education news outlet, a fifth of 53 California school district superintendents’ contracts evaluated contain a “me too” clause.
David Cash, a former Santa Barbara Unified superintendent and founder of a leadership search service for school districts, said superintendents’ contracts contain a “me too” clause to ensure fairness throughout the district.
In 2024, Santa Barbara Unified teachers narrowly averted a strike by coming to an agreement of a 10% raise and a 5% raise for the next year. District management, including Maldonado and her cabinet, then got the same raise.
Over in the Goodland, Goleta Union management and confidential employees also got the same 3% salary raise as the teachers and classified workers this year when the board approved its agreements with its bargaining units on June 17. But a “me too” clause it’s not written into any of their contracts.
“We do usually end up offering the equivalent of a me too,” Mary Kahn, Goleta Union superintendent, told the News-Press.
Kahn did not get a “me too” raise like Maldonado.
“My contract is separate,” Kahn said. “As we were focused on getting everything settled with our people, the Board and I will bring my contract forward for the annual update in August.”
A potentially precarious financial outlook
Both districts typically give identical raises to their non-represented staff as they do their staff with bargaining units. But in Santa Barbara, Michele and her husband Todd Voigt argued that this isn’t a typical financial landscape.
“This budget you’re being asked to adopt reflects a four-year cumulated deficit of over $60M with over $34M in losses last year, over $20M this year and more projected to follow,” Michele said. “This trend is a bump – it’s not a bump, it’s a cliff.”
Todd, who served on the finance committee led by Tedeschi, asserted during public comment that “the board is yet to target the balanced budget goal.”
Banning then posed a question to Tedeschi.
“Knowing the intricacies of how these pieces are fit together, do you believe that some of the alarmist statements that are being made to the board from public comment are indeed things we should be panicked about?”
Although Banning was pining for a certain answer from Tedeschi, he didn’t get what he was looking for.
“I don’t know that we should necessarily be panicked about them, but I do think it warrants looking into,” Tedeschi replied.
The board ultimately voted 4-1 to approve next year’s budget, with board member Celeste Kafri voting against.
Kafri, likely spurred by the statements made during public comment, wanted a policy that requires the district to balance the budget before she could say yes to the budget.
“Without a timeline for a balanced budget, I’m voting no,” Kafri said.
