Stop paying South Carolina school superintendents so much to leave | Opinion
Being a public school superintendent in South Carolina — or anywhere in the nation, really — is a high-profile job with a lot of authority, responsibility and stress — and a big paycheck to match.
It can also ultimately involve, as we’ve seen too often in the Midlands, a giant severance payout.
Over four years, cash-strapped residents have had to choose between buying gas or groceries while hundreds of thousands of their tax dollars go to departing superintendents in Richland 1, Richland 2, Lexington 2 and Lexington-Richland 5. These are massive payouts to administrators nowhere near retirement age, some of whom have landed lucrative new jobs just weeks later.
Of course, the partisan politics that can alter the composition of a school board every couple years can also change a superintendent’s desire or ability to stick around in any district. But the problems with big potential payouts begin any time a district hires a new superintendent and a board doesn’t adequately plan for their eventual departures in contracts required to start their work.
Why someone leaves can be unclear and often is only illuminated after legal disputes or reporters’ public record requests. Typically, a superintendent’s hiring and departure are worked out with secret meetings and financial arrangements whose details can take time to emerge.
As you’ll see below, it’s a problem that demands more attention by stewards of public money.
There’s no question the money could be used for something other than these big payouts. The fact that so many such payments have been made in the Midlands recently really illustrates the problem and shows that something should be done to plan for possibilities like this. Contracts are designed to give assurances to employees and employers. Why not make a better effort to address all this at the front end? It simply seems the logical, fiscally conservative thing to do.
One district has an opportunity to right this wrong before the cycle repeats itself.
Richland 1 announced just last week that it has hired the region’s newest superintendent.
Pending contract negotiations, Todd Anthony Walker, the chief curriculum and instruction officer for Columbus City Schools in Columbus, Ohio, will receive an annual salary of $235,000 for three years to lead one of the largest school districts in the Midlands and across South Carolina.
Richland 1 has 48 schools in and around Columbia, more than 1,750 teachers, more than 22,000 students and a proposed general fund budget for next fiscal year of $422.8 million.
So any potential early payout to a superintendent is clearly money that could be better spent. This year, the Richland 1 school board has balanced its budget by asking the Richland County Council to approve a property tax increase. Without that, there’s a $6 million hole in the budget.
Perhaps the school board will set some expectations about and boundaries for any future severance package. One can hope. These payouts are too big and too common not to think about now.
In June 2021, just weeks after being named South Carolina superintendent of the year, Lexington-Richand 5 Superintendent Christina Melton announced she would resign at month’s end amid board friction and criticism over her cautious response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Melton was paid $226,368 — one year’s salary — to leave the district, and that September, just about two months after she left, she began a new job as director of assessment with the state Department of Education.
In May 2022, Lexington 2 Superintendent Nicholas Wade suddenly resigned, ending his contract nearly a year early. He received $240,000 — doled out in monthly sums for two years — and $10,000 for lawyers’ fees. The giant sum exceeded his annual base salary of $180,000.
In January 2023, Richland 2 Superintendent Baron Davis also abruptly resigned. He received $615,000 in pay: a lump sum of $415,518.68, $124,481.32 for accrued sick days and vacation leave and $75,000 for “all disputed claims,” which were left vague in his severance agreement.
Davis’ contract had been extended until 2026 just months before he resigned. His annual salary was $254,681 so his payout was extraordinary. He had a new job within two months, as a senior advisor with an educational nonprofit.
In November 2024, Richland 1 Superintendent Craig Witherspoon announced he would end a 10-year run with the district and leave in June 2025. His separation agreement provided him with a full year’s pay — after a contract extension had raised his salary to $258,121 — plus accrued compensation for annual leave and six months of health insurance coverage.
That’s more than $1.3 million paid out in the Midlands to superintendents for work not done — though a portion of that was for Davis’ accrued time off.
So many questions: Why does this keep happening in the Midlands? What can be done to avoid parting with so many superintendents like this and essentially giving away taxpayer money so fruitlessly in situations like this? And, facetiously, how do we all get jobs with benefits like this?
Maybe this has all just been a coincidence or run of bad luck, and this series of gigantic payoffs to part with public school superintendents in the Midlands won’t continue for years to come.
Or maybe it’s been shown to be a major problem now. Maybe it’s the kind of thing that every school board in the state — only starting with Richland 1 — should better address in contracts so that the districts and taxpayers they serve don’t get stuck paying ridiculous costs so regularly.
That’s reading, writing and arithmetic, which is what our school districts should be focused on.
This story was originally published May 28, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Stop paying South Carolina school superintendents so much to leave | Opinion."