Pelican Press
Given the gyrations of the economy over the past year, many companies have had no choice but to cut salaries of employees they have been able to keep and furlough workers – without pay – for days or weeks at a time to save every penny possible.
Of course, private enterprise is not the only sector of the economy that’s had to consider all sorts of draconian measures to keep the doors open. The Sarasota County School District and other local government entities have had to take their share of unwelcome steps, too, to make their budgets balance, as the law requires.
Given all the bad economic news, the recent action by Lori White, superintendent of the Sarasota County schools, to refuse an automatic pay raise was truly commendable. If that move wasn’t such a surprise – given that White refused a raise last year when she acceded to the school board’s request to make the move from associate superintendent to her current post – her subsequent statement was more stunning.
White announced that she would direct the finance department staff to reduce her base salary by 3.25 percent.
“I think it is so important to start at the top if you have to face the potential of a salary reduction,” she said at the June 16 school board meeting. Her priorities, she added, “are with what is good for this district. It’s not about me.”
White’s decisions about her pay are stellar examples of leadership. Knowing her as we do, we believe she has suffered a tremendous amount of anguish over the layoffs that the budget reductions have necessitated in the district. Having climbed through the ranks from her initial position as a teacher – and spending as much time as she still does in the classrooms – we cannot help but feel she is empathetic to the teachers who have received pink slips. Yet, she is a true professional; she does not allow her emotions to color the staffing decisions she has to make.
Still, by refusing a raise and going further by taking a cut, White made it very clear to the teachers who have lost their jobs that she wants no special treatment for herself.
If the top executives at a score of U.S. firms – Goldman Sachs, among them, – had announced similar action instead of whining over the Obama Administration’s efforts to rein in their excesses, think how tremendous a positive reaction that would have elicited from the American public. The economy might be on its way to a faster recovery with that type of leadership in corporate America.
For that matter, the U.S. economy might not have traversed such a dramatic downward spiral if those CEOs understood the lesson former teacher Lori White presented last month in Sarasota.
