If the highest public salary in the county deserves the highest level of scrutiny, taxpayers are well served by the Fort Wayne Community Schools board.

At its meeting last week, the board reviewed Superintendent Wendy Robinson’s contract in a presentation unprecedented for its transparency.

Its decision to extend the superintendent’s contract for five years, backloading benefits as an incentive for Robinson to stay on the job, is based on sound data and evidence that district achievement is tied to strong and consistent leadership.

Board President Mark GiaQuinta began the contract renewal process with a new approach – engaging the services of attorney Tim McCaulay to represent the board in negotiations. FWCS attorney Bill Sweet represented the superintendent, at her expense.

“This is one of the times we will have disparate interests,” GiaQuinta said.

The new contract eliminates another conflict. Previous agreements tied increases in the superintendent’s salary to increases in teacher compensation, so that even a 1 percent hike in teacher pay resulted in a generous boost for the superintendent. That link has been eliminated.

Robinson’s base salary of $174,502 will not increase this year, a worthy acknowledgment by the board and superintendent that pay hikes are inappropriate in the current economic climate.

The incentive for Robinson is staying on the job. She will earn an additional $30,000 if she stays until June 30, 2014, and an additional $10,000 each year thereafter.

The district also contributes $20,000 a year toward an annuity. Because of Robinson’s long tenure with FWCS, the district does not have to contribute $13,615 to the Teachers Retirement Fund – an expense it would incur for a superintendent with a later TRF hire date.

At Robinson’s request, the board will also develop new evaluation measures tied to the district’s balanced scorecard review. As candidates, some board members, including GiaQuinta, criticized the previous evaluation process. The new process is tardy, but still a welcome improvement.

A survey of Indiana superintendent salaries placed Robinson’s 2008-09 base salary as eighth highest, behind seven Marion County school districts – some as small as 6,100 students compared with FWCS’ 31,000-plus enrollment. Among districts with enrollment higher than 20,000, the state’s second-largest district appropriately pays its superintendent the second-highest salary.

To illustrate the competition in hiring, GiaQuinta pointed to new contracts at Monroe County Community Schools in Bloomington, where J.T. Coopman was recently hired to lead the 11,000-student district for $171,000 a year. At Greater Clark County Schools, the board hired former Louisville superintendent Stephen Daeschner at $225,000 a year. The district won’t disclose the value of the total compensation package because part of it is funded – inappropriately – by the Community Foundation of Southern Indiana.

The generous pay illustrates the stiff competition for experienced, proven school leaders, and the FWCS board is right to recognize Robinson’s appeal to other districts. Her record leading an urban school district is well known in Indiana and, increasingly, across the country.

The Wallace Foundation, which has invested millions of dollars in developing educational leadership, singles out Robinson as an effective superintendent. She was featured in a recent public television documentary underwritten by the foundation and was a panelist at a Wallace conference in Washington last month that was headlined by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The National Alliance of Black School Educators this month honored Robinson as superintendent of the year.

The FWCS vote appropriately recognizes the strong leader the district has in Robinson, as well as taxpayers’ interests in the agreement. More important, the board set a new standard in transparency, one that all school districts should follow.