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The Portland Public Schools Board voted 6-1 to add a pay grade to the senior leadership salary schedule on Tuesday night, approving the establishment of new senior chief positions with salaries ranging between $224,000 and $239,000.
The promotions for two of the district’s top officials—Jon Franco to senior chief of operations and Kristina Howard to senior chief of academics—come as the district faces a $40 million budget deficit. Just minutes ahead of her proposal, Superintendent Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong had wrapped up a presentation about the upcoming 2025–26 fiscal year budget, which includes 242 staffing reductions, the majority of them in school personnel.
Armstrong also plans to bring contracted legal counsel in house, paying a chief legal counsel on the same pay scale as Franco and Howard. “That’s designed to save us more money over time,” she said.
Armstrong had initially put forth this proposal in February but asked the School Board to delay the motion, seeking more time to show how her math around reductions played out. In her presentation on Tuesday night, Armstrong indicated that PPS would undergo several senior leadership reductions and the new structure would still result in a cost savings.
The district plans to cut one chief, five senior directors, and three nonlicensed director positions in the 2025–26 fiscal year. Combined with the two new senior chief positions, the district’s senior administrative team would go from 82 full-time equivalent positions to 75. Armstrong has stressed that her new structure would create more efficiency in reporting and management.
“One of my goals in my first year as superintendent is creating a leadership structure that best supports our schools, staff and students,” Armstrong wrote in a February memo. “Although a new layer of leadership is being introduced, the overall restructuring will result in cost savings as we work through our deficit.”
In 2023, Franco made $195,380, meaning his salary would increase by at least 14.6%. Howard was not in her position yet, but her counterpart in the position made $213,646. That would mean her position’s pay would increase by at least 4.8%. When Sandy Husk was interim superintendent last year, she eliminated high-up senior leadership positions to cut costs. (PPS has faced a systemic budget deficit and is in its third consecutive year of cutting costs).
Armstrong’s presentation swayed the vast majority of the School Board, whose members generally expressed that the superintendent should have the resources to organize her senior leaders in the way she felt best suited her vision for the district.
“While I’ve certainly seen some concern about adding an additional higher level to our salary schedule when we’re making layoffs and cuts, I know you know that,” School Board member Christy Splitt told Armstrong on Tuesday. “And it’s still worth it for you, because you know that this change is something that in the end will make for a better-functioning district.”
School Board member Julia Brim-Edwards was the lone “no” vote. She expressed concern that the School Board wasn’t approving specific positions, and instead setting a salary range others could ultimately get promoted to. But she added she respects the superintendent’s right to organize senior leadership.
“I don’t believe that the case has been made that we should, at this time after hearing the position the district’s in financially, [add] a new pay scale at the top,” she said.
“I’m not going to support it because it’s on an evening in which a budget is being proposed that cuts hundreds of teachers and school staff from our schools and I don’t believe it’s the time to be adding a pay step to the top of this pay scale,” Brim-Edwards continued. “I’m concerned that it adds another administrative layer back.”