Reginald Shareef at Roanoke. Recently, The Roanoke Times reported that the proposed new contract of Roanoke schools Superintendent E. Wayne Harris could become a political issue in the May City Council elections. The School Board is negotiating with Harris because he continues to get offers from other school systems.
Market forces are usually the major determinant of public sector executive pay.
Traditional market dynamics include whether organizations are of comparable size, levels of performance, and the complexity of the operating environment. Based on these criteria, Harris should receive a new contract if larger and more unstable school districts want to lure him from Roanoke. The fact that some Roanoke area residents think Harris is overpaid leads me to conclude that these residents are not making a distinction between public and private executive compensation packages. Indeed, it is the issue of top business executive compensation that continues to receive widespread attention from both researchers and the general public. This huge volume of research has revealed several distrubing patterns concerning the compensation practices of business executives.