Columbia Board of Education advocates for superintendent payout cap
Nia Hinson
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Columbia Board of Education is advocating to change a state law.
During its Monday night meeting, board members discussed their 2025-26 legislative priorities, one of which had to do with superintendent payouts. CPS is now advocating to change the state law, making it so that superintendents are paid no more than one year’s salary upon separation or termination.
The district had a costly separation agreement last school year with former Superintendent Brian Yearwood. CPS paid Yearwood the remainder of his contract year, which was about $667,000.
“There have been several districts that have separated from their superintendents over the last couple of years and who have had similar impacts as what we experienced here,” CPS spokeswoman Michelle Baumstark said.
The district approved the contract for Superintendent Jeff Klein in March, setting his year salary at $255,000. Under his contract, the maximum payout is capped at one year’s salary, if a separation is deemed necessary.
According to documents, CPS wants to “protect taxpayers from undue burden.”
Documents from the Missouri School Boards’ Association 2025 fall delegate assembly, CPS claimed using taxpayer dollars to give six-figure payouts to “failing superintendents is not fiscally responsible.” CPS also wrote that it included language in its contract for Klein due to its expensive agreement with Yearwood.
“We feel it would be beneficial to smaller districts who may not have the draw of a place like Columbia to have a statutory limit to the fiscal risk,” the document says. “Our board discussed that although we are typically in favor of local control in most situations, we could not think of a time that a local board would prefer to pay more money than less to a superintendent upon separation or termination.”
The document also shows MSBA’s Advocacy Committee recommending to oppose the change presented by the Columbia Board of Education.
“It has not gone through a vote of our entire delegate assembly so there has not been a vote one way or another on that proposal from Columbia,” Senior Director of Advocacy Caitlin Whaley said.
The MSBA could vote on the issue during its meeting next week.
Columbia Board President John Lyman told ABC 17 News the district plans to take it back to the MSBA.
“Next week is our MSBA conference. We’ll have a delegate assembly there where we’ll be able to go. Our four delegates will go and vote on different topics, and the opportunity is there to potentially present that on the floor and get the discussion going,” Lyman said. “We’re going to reach out to MSBA to kind of talk to them about what their initial thoughts were, what the pros and cons and make adjustments.”
State Rep. David Tyson Smith (D-Columbia) also told ABC 17 News in a text message on Monday that he would support the change.
“Since we are dealing with tax payer dollars, I think a year or a year and a half contract is reasonable,” Tyson Smith wrote.
A list of the board’s legislative priorities can be viewed below.
Legislative Priorities 25-26 (002)_491407k3bum5s0fay2htsm0jvhdk2qDownload