On Dec. 4, the Sedona-Oak Creek School District met in executive session to discuss the final item on its agenda: A cash bonus for Superintendent Dennis Dearden’s work thus far. The 6 percent bonus to Dearden’s $130,000 salary would amount to a $7,800 bonus.
Arizona Revised Statute §15-341.39 permits districts to include performance pay as part of a superintendent’s contract for up to 20 percent, but also states that such a bonus would be voluntary for a board to pay.
The board voted 5-0 to give Dearden the bonus.
Yet despite the cash approved by the Governing Board and legally permitted under Arizona state law, Dearden told the board he would not accept it.
He reportedly told to the Governing Board, “While I appreciate your confidence in what we’re doing and the direction we’re headed in, I have never accepted a bonus, and I will not at this point, either.”
This represents a surprising change of course for the district’s top administrator, as Dearden’s predecessor, David Lykins more than eagerly accepted annual bonuses all while underpaid teachers under his leadership struggled just to pay rent.
During Lykins’ tenure, the biggest fiscal kick in the teeth to teachers was an $18,500 bonus given to Lykins by the then-board in 2014, when the district was short on funds. In the months afterward, letters to the editor, public speakers at SOCSD board meetings and our editorials hammered Lykins to make the good faith effort of returning the unearned bonus back to the district or donating it so that the district’s underpaid teachers could receive some compensation for their daily work with our children.
Lykins claimed he would look into it, but never did, eventually claiming that it would be too difficult to find the means to return the money. Would leaving cash in unmarked envelopes on teachers’ desks really be so tough?
The then-board cemented Lykins’ bonus into a permanent raise from $101,000 to $120,000 via a three-year contract in 2015. At that time, the district was hemorrhaging students, losing per-child funds from the state and in the beginning steps of looking to close a school. In 2016, with little warning, Lykins pushed to close Big Park Community School in the Village of Oak Creek. The community fought back, and delayed the closure another year when it became financially unviable to maintain three campuses with the number of students only filling two schools. Lykins did not take a pay cut when a third of his responsibilities were cut with the school’s closure. In the final year of Lykins’ tenure, the new board in place refused to give Lykins a bonus, which failed in a 2-2-1 vote, then later declined to renew his contract and sent him packing.
Yet despite all this, Dearden’s recent refusal to accept a bonus this year was not based on making a departure from Lykins’ track record, nor to avoid criticism from the public or this newspaper.
Rather it was rooted in values that shape noble and humble leadership — the kind of selfless administrative benevolence that simultaneously demonstrates solidarity with his staff, fiscal responsibility to Sedona taxpayers and set an example for his students.
To wit, Dearden told the board, “The reason for that, is I don’t do this alone. I have a great team of people that work equally as hard as I do. Because of that, I feel it would be very unfair to accept a bonus either now or in the future.”
We applaud and commend Dearden for this honorable act: To put his team before himself and, in doing so, complement the teachers and district employees who educate our youth. A school district is not run by one person but by a team of dedicated civil servants.
That being said, we must wonder why the SOCSD offered a bonus in the first place. With the recent closure of an entire school and lower student numbers, the district can ill-afford to dole out cash with no direct return to the classroom. This would be the case if it was a bonus to Dearden or any other member of the district.
We understand the board is bound by law and contract to consider such a bonus annually, but as state law makes such a consideration optional, the district should decline to offer bonuses to administrators until the budget can be stabilized or more students return.
Sedona’s age demographics may make this a hard push for the next several years, but the Governing Board should look at the long-term stability of the district before handing out what little cash it has.
By all means the district should do all it can to raise teacher salaries and offer what it can to keep quality teachers from leaving, but review the process for which it rewards the top-paid administrators while the lowest-paid staffers, who work most directly with our students, see little for their daily service. But with Dearden’s recent act, these staffers know he is on their side.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
