BURST
Surrey school trustees are refusing to directly respond to public outrage over the board’s decision to approve significant pay increases for the district’s top employees.
As Postmedia News reported this week, superintendent Mark Pearmain received total compensation of $527,363 last school year, making him the highest paid superintendent in B.C. His deputy superintendent, Andrew Holland, received a total compensation of $422,954.
When looking at remuneration alone, which includes salary, benefits and bonuses, Pearmain received $447,199 in 2024-25, a 26 per cent pay hike compared with the $354,066 he got the previous year. Holland’s remuneration jumped 24 per cent during the same period, to $351,119 from $283,178.
“These pay raises are absolutely outrageous at the Surrey school district, especially when you keep in mind how generously compensated these senior school board executives already are,” said Carson Binda, B.C. director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
“But what’s a real slap in the face to taxpayers is that these school district executives are taking these massive salaries and eye-watering pay raises at the same time they’re crying broke and cutting services for students. That’s unacceptable.”
When asked by Postmedia why the trustees would approve such significant pay increases for the senior-level employees, board chairman Gary Tymoschuk continuously sidestepped the question. The chairman only repeatedly said that the compensation for senior-level employees is determined together with the Public Sector Employers’ Council and the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association.
“The work they do to determine the scales and so on is by way of market reviews and making sure that the compensation scales that are available to school boards are in line with other organizations,” Tymoschuk said.
The employers’ association is a government agency, made up of a board directly appointed by school boards and the provincial government.
Postmedia reached out to every school trustee for comment, but the remaining six members didn’t return phone calls, texts or emails. An interview with Pearmain was also not granted by the district.
In addition to Pearmain’s $364,207 salary, $22,204 in pension and $44,149 in benefits, he was paid an extra $96,803 — consisting of a vacation payout of $56,032, a $14,282 car allowance, and another $26,489, which included payments in lieu of participation in a savings plan, payments in lieu of long-service recognition and matching contributions for employee benefits.
Linda Michele Radomski, executive director for human resources, also received a 32.6 per cent increase in her total compensation, taking home $316,490 last year.
In vacation payouts alone, Pearmain, Holland, Radomski, as well as the current and former secretary treasurers, and the assistant secretary treasurer, received a combined total of $233,353.
“All of our employees are encouraged to take their vacation entitlement,” Tymoschuk said when asked why these employees weren’t mandated to take vacation.
“However, sometimes when you’re at a senior level, it’s just not feasible for them to take all the time that’s available to them, as they’re running a very large school district … and so therefore they have available to them to take compensation in lieu.”
Binda said the exempt employees appear to be “taking full advantage of all the perks,” by taking vacation payouts rather than time off.
Tymoschuk wouldn’t answer if any of the trustees were against approving the pay increases, saying he couldn’t disclose details discussed at in camera meetings.
He also wouldn’t comment on whether he thinks the total compensation was appropriate for the superintendents, how the board could justify the significant pay increases while making many cuts to student programs, services and staff positions, or whether the board considered bringing back previously cut student services instead of increasing the exempt employees’ compensation.
“We spend the lowest amount of money, in terms of a percentage of our total budget, on administration costs, including compensation for our senior staff. We spend about 2.7 per cent, and that compares to 3.7 per cent in Metro Vancouver and 4.1 per cent throughout the province,” Tymoschuk said.
“We’re very conscious of it and I’m very confident that the board thinks about that every step of the way, and we make sure as much of our available funds as possible goes toward students in the classroom. That’s our main goal and our main mandate.”
The Education Ministry didn’t provide Postmedia with an interview with Minister Lisa Beare, or comment on the topic. Instead, the ministry referred questions to the employers’ association, which said Pearmain’s pay was in compliance with the association’s guidelines.
For Binda, that isn’t good enough.
“This is a failure by the provincial government,” he said. “This absolutely falls on the minister of education’s desk to sort out, and the fact that they haven’t sorted it out yet is a failure by the province.”