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With Portland Public Schools facing a $40 million budget deficit heading into the 2025-26 school year, Superintendent Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong will advocate for creating two new senior leadership positions at the school board meeting tonight.
Her proposal is already facing pushback from school board member Julia Brim-Edwards, who on Monday night released a statement against adding senior leadership. “This reverses action earlier this year to eliminate two deputy superintendent positions to take a layer of administration out and to save money,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
Armstrong’s proposal is to create two new senior chief positions—one for academics and one for operations—each with salary ranges between $224,000 and $239,000. In a memo accompanying the resolution the school board will review tonight, Armstrong says she would promote Kristina Howard, currently the district’s chief academic officer, and Jon Franco, currently the chief of schools, into the roles.
In 2023, Franco made $195,380, meaning his salary would increase by at least 14.6%. Howard was not in her position yet, but her counterpart in the position made $213,646. That would mean her pay would increase by at least 4.8%.
A chart attached to the memo indicates academics, schools and student services would report to Howard. Operations, technology and athletics would report to Franco.
“One of my goals in my first year as superintendent is creating a leadership structure that best supports our schools, staff and students,” Armstrong wrote in the memo. “Although a new layer of leadership is being introduced, the overall restructuring will result in cost savings as we work through our deficit.”
Armstrong added that the reorganization will “streamline workflows, consolidate efforts and strengthen our leadership.”
When Sandy Husk was interim superintendent last year, she eliminated Cheryl Proctor, the deputy superintendent of instruction, and Myong Leigh, then the interim deputy superintendent of business and operations. Leigh’s salary is not immediately clear, but as The Oregonian reported in February 2024, Proctor was the second highest paid employee at the district, receiving $224,665 in 2023.
Brim-Edwards says that the district has other priorities amid its budget deficit. Patching it could chop up to 230 jobs in schools and the central office, the district said in January. At the top of her mind are the potential eliminations of funding commitments to Southeast schools, career coordinators in high schools and full time reductions at Title I schools (schools that serve larger low income populations).
“It’s not about the individuals in the positions at all,” Brim-Edwards says. “We need to keep our focus on schools at times like this”
The full board will hear Armstrong’s proposal on the new salaries on Tuesday night.