Fort Bend ISD’s top earners made nearly $5 million

FORT BEND COUNTY – Fort Bend Independent School District’s top 25 earners collected base salaries totaling almost $5 million in the 2023-24 school year, according to staffing data from the Texas Education Agency and the Houston Chronicle. Two superintendents occupied the top-paid spots for the 80,000-student district last school year: Christie Whitbeck, who served as superintendent for the first half of the 2023-24 school year until her sudden departure from the district in December 2023, and her successor, Marcell Smith, who took over in January 2024. Smith’s starting base salary of $410,000 exceeded Whitbeck’s salary at the time of her departure by over $30,000. The move to the Fort Bend ISD was a lucrative one for Smith, who previously served as superintendent of 12,000-student Duncanville ISD in Dallas County until December 2023.

Smith’s move gave him a 5% base pay increase from his $392,000 salary at Duncanville ISD. However, base salary isn’t the only pay Smith will receive as superintendent at Fort Bend ISD. Benefits built into his contract show a retention supplement of $50,000 per year paid by the district into a retirement plan in July of each year, as well supplemental retirement contributions distributed during each of the district’s 24 pay periods totaling $30,000 per school year. In all, Smith’s total pay will top $500,000 a year. Even without the supplemental pay, Smith’s salary places him at No. 7 on the list of highest-paid superintendents in the state in the 2023-24 school year. Cypress-Fairbanks ISD superintendent Mark Henry earned the highest salary of any Texas superintendent that year, making almost $537,000 at the time of his retirement in December 2023, after 12 and a half years leading the district. The Houston Chronicle analysis of Fort Bend’s peer districts in the state – those with 50,000 to 100,000 students enrolled in the 2023-24 school year– found that the average superintendent base salary was about $354,000 last year.