Fifty-Six Superintendents
The cost of home rule
Nassau County has 56 school districts. Regardless of size, each employs its own superintendent. They set strategy, hire principals, manage a central office, and negotiate labor contracts.
In 2024, the 53 Nassau superintendents for whom payroll data is available earned a combined $16.1 million.1 The median was $295,286.
This table is sorted by how much each district paid its superintendent divided by enrollment:
At the top, Bellmore UFSD paid $343,827 for 1,121 students: $307 per student.
At the bottom, East Meadow UFSD paid $249,945 for 8,286 students: $30 per student.
The same title, the same county, the same year. One costs ten times more per student than the other.
Island Park UFSD — covered in the first article in this series — paid its superintendent $272,978 for 899 students, or $304 per student. Hempstead UFSD, with 9,553 students, paid $336,075, or $35 per student.
The outlier is Jericho UFSD. Its superintendent, Benjamin Ciuffo, received $599,525 in 2024 — $241,000 more than the next-highest earner at the district, and more than three times what East Meadow paid. SeeThroughNY reports total annual compensation, which for public officials can include payouts of accumulated sick time, vacation, and contractual incentives on top of base salary. The $599,525 figure is what Jericho paid; what portion reflects ongoing salary versus one-time payments is not disclosed in the payroll data.2
For comparison: New York City runs one school system for approximately 915,000 students. Its superintendent equivalent — Chancellor David Banks — earned $433,456 in fiscal year 2024.3 That is one salary for one city. Per student, that is less than fifty cents. Nassau’s 53 separate superintendent salaries average $304,415 each, for districts that range from 899 students to 9,553.
If Nassau consolidated to a single countywide superintendent paid at the current Nassau median — $295,286 — the remaining 52 positions would free up roughly $15.8 million per year. At the Nassau average teacher base salary of approximately $126,000, that is about 125 classroom teachers.4
Fifty-six separate organizational charts, 453 square miles.
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Three of Nassau’s 56 districts — Sewanhaka Central High School District, Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District, and Valley Stream Central High School District — were not found in SeeThroughNY’s payroll database and are not included above.
SeeThroughNY reports all school district employee titles as “NDR” (not disclosable record). Superintendents are identified here as the highest-paid employee at each agency. In most districts this is the superintendent; exceptions may exist where another administrator or a medical professional earns more. The Jericho figure reflects total pay as reported and has not been independently confirmed against contract documents.
NYC DOE payroll data from NYC OpenData, Citywide Payroll Data (Fiscal Year), dataset k397-673e, FY2024, agency “DEPT OF ED PEDAGOGICAL.” Total pay = regular_gross_paid + total_ot_paid + total_other_pay. NYC enrollment (2023–24) approximately 915,000, per NYC DOE reports.
Savings calculated as $16,133,984 (53 superintendent total pay) minus $295,286 (Nassau median, kept as the single superintendent) = $15,838,698. Average teacher base salary derived from NYSED Fiscal Profiles 2023–24: total teacher salary spending across all 56 Nassau districts ($2.35 billion) divided by estimated teacher headcount at an 11:1 pupil–teacher ratio (~18,600 teachers) = approximately $126,000. Fully loaded including benefits and pension, the same savings funds roughly 95 teachers. The 125 figure uses base salary only.