By Ethan Forman
Staff Writer
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DANVERS — Roger Bourgeois, the superintendent and director of Essex Agricultural and Technical High School, will make $164,300 next year and about $168,400 in the final year of the school's existence as it merges into a larger regional vocational school being built on its campus.
Trustees recently approved the new, two-year contract, which represents a 2 percent raise in the coming school year and a 2.5 percent raise the following year.
The contract means Bourgeois will be the last superintendent-director of Essex Aggie, which held its 99th commencement this spring.
Gloucester and Cape Ann's towns all send students to the school, as well as to North Shore Technical School in Middleton.
The new vo-tech regional school will fold North Shore Tech, Essex Aggie and the Peabody High School vo-tech program into a single $133 million, 1,140-student school now under construction in Danvers, while Gloucester will continue to provide its a vo-tech program at Gloucester High School.
The deal extends Bourgeois' contract through the 2013-14 school year and rolls the cost of benefits he had been receiving into his base salary, making those formerly outside perks eligible for inclusion in his pension.
The 2 percent increase for the coming school year will be applied to Bourgeois' base salary of $151,925, which works out to be a raise of $3,039.
In addition, the contract consolidates into his base pay about $9,300 in compensation that he was receiving as benefits, including $1,500 for long-term disability insurance, $3,000 for life insurance and $4,800 in travel expenses.
Under recent pension reforms, the cost of those benefits could no longer be counted when calculating his pension. Adding the cost of the benefits to his salary gives him a larger salary on which to base his pension.
"It was a fairness issue in my mind" to roll the benefits into the base salary, Bennett said, since Bourgeois had been receiving those benefits all along.
Ethan Forman can be reached at eforman@gloucestertimes.com.
