Cleaning Up in the Name of D.C.'s Schools

They, and their D.C. government salaries, are:

1. Julia Lara, $115,000.

2. Mark Ouellette, $96,700.

3. Bonnie Cain, $92,700.

4. D'Wanna Lee, $92,700.

5. Abigail Smith, $81,250.

What, you may ask, do they do?

Chief of staff Lerum wrote the following to Marc Borbely of Fix Our Schools in response to Borbely's request for the staff and salary information cited above: "We do not have specific subject areas assigned only to certain staff members at this point." So, a little of this, a little of that.

The deputy mayor hired a director for the Office of Parent and Community Involvement. That's Jackie Pinckney-Hackett, who was a paid consultant to the D.C. public schools' special education call center. She draws a salary of $95,000 a year.

He also hired three policy analysts, one of whom has been designated "senior." The senior's job pays $82,424 and belongs to Amoretta Morris. The two other analysts, Claudia Lujan and Rebecca Katz, are paid $63,388 each, which is less than the salary of Reinoso's executive assistant but far more than the annual salary of a D.C. schoolteacher with a bachelor's degree ($42,370) or master's degree ($45,194), or a D.C. police officer at step 1 ($46,395).

A job with the deputy mayor for education is, in some cases, a vehicle for personal financial growth.

Only two of Reinoso's hires, special assistants Lara and Lee, took pay cuts when they joined the Fenty administration in January. Three others, Bridgett, Smith and Morris, are being paid the same salaries they received in their previous jobs.