One Year In

Cedar Valley News
Friday, April 3, 2026
One Year In
From the Mayor’s Desk
By Caleb Mercer, Mayor

I have been mayor of Cedar Valley for just over a year. I ran on one promise: I would tell you the truth about how this town spends its money. This is me keeping that promise.

I want to talk about the school district.

Last spring I pushed through a transparency requirement for the Cedar Valley School District. Before every budget vote, the district must now publish four charts. Average teacher salary over ten years. Average administrator salary over ten years. Cost per pupil over ten years. Salaries of the four highest-paid administrators.

The requirement passed. The charts are coming. But before they arrive, I want Cedar Valley to know what I already know. Because I pulled the numbers.

Here is what the four charts show.

Teacher salaries. The current contract starts a new teacher at $56,823 per year. After twelve years and the highest level of education credits, the top of the scale reaches $88,197. Those are the people in the classrooms with your children. That is what they earn.

Administrator salaries. The superintendent earns $250,000 per year. That is more than four times what a first-year teacher earns. That is nearly three times the district’s median teacher salary.

Cost per pupil. The district is facing a $90 million structural budget deficit going into next school year. To close the gap, the administration has proposed cutting more than 500 positions — teachers, aides, coaches, counselors. Class sizes would increase by four students across every grade level. A high school student would sit in a class of 36 on average. A kindergartner would be in a room with 27 students.

The four highest-paid administrators. The superintendent is at the top of that list. The others are in the same range you would expect, given that salary as the ceiling.

I am not going to tell you what to think about those numbers. You are Cedar Valley. You can read.

But I will tell you what I see. I see a district where the classroom absorbs every cut, and the administrative layer does not. I see a decade of flat funding used to explain a deficit, while the top of the salary structure remained untouched. I see a chart showing teacher pay growing modestly over ten years, while administrative pay grows faster. I see a cost per pupil rising not because more money is reaching the classroom, but because overhead has grown while enrollment has fallen.

The transparency requirement worked. The district adjusted its budget before the charts were even published. The threat of disclosure moved numbers. That matters. I am pleased with it.

But transparency is not accountability. Transparency is the light you turn on. Accountability is what you do with what you see.

What I am asking Cedar Valley to do is simple. Come to the budget meetings. Read the charts when they publish. Ask the questions the charts raise. If the ratio between what the district spends on administration and what it spends in classrooms does not satisfy you, say so. Not in private. On the record.

The school board works for Cedar Valley. The superintendent works for the school board. The money comes from Cedar Valley taxpayers — from property taxes, from state funds, from every family that pays into this system. The people who set the budgets answer to the people who fund them. But only if the people who fund them show up.

One year in, I can tell you this town is capable of more than it has been asked for. The front porch is not enough. I need Cedar Valley at the table.

— Caleb Mercer, Mayor

A note on the numbers: The salary and budget figures in this editorial are drawn from the Anchorage School District’s public records, used here to illustrate what the four-chart transparency requirement reveals in any school district. Cedar Valley School District is fictional. The Anchorage School District is not. The pattern these numbers show — administrative salaries outpacing teacher salaries, classrooms absorbing cuts while overhead grows, cost per pupil rising as enrollment falls — is documented in public school districts across the country. Every school district in America is required to make these figures available under public records law. Cedar Valley readers are encouraged to request the same four charts from their own school district and see what the numbers say.

This editorial is part of the fictional Cedar Valley News series, written by Evan Swensen, Publisher, Publication Consultants, and Claude Marshall, AI Developmental Editor. While the people and town are fictional, the national events and public records they reflect on are real.

Cedar Valley News has a new Facebook group. If you have comments and want to join the conversation, you are welcome. https://bit.ly/40p8jKy

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Start Your Publishing Journey with Expert Guidance.
Unlock Exclusive Tips, Trends, and Opportunities to Bringing Your Book to Market.

About Us

Kindly contact us if you've written a book, if you're writing a book, if you're thinking about writing a book, we can help!

Departments

My Account

Social Media

Payment

Publication Consultants Publication Consultants

Copyright 2023 powered by Publication Consultants All Rights Reserved.