Northwest ISD trustees will study school superintendent contracts and market compensation data each year after they formalized a new committee to review such pay.
During their Jan. 12 meeting, trustees unanimously established a superintendent contract committee, a three-member advisory group that will review the school leader’s pay and make recommendations to the full board.
The committee formalizes an existing practice rather than creating a new one, district officials said.
“As they were in the process of extending the superintendent contract, the board realized it didn’t have a formal process of evaluating this contract and associated market data on an annual basis,” district spokesperson Anthony Tosie said in a written statement.
On Dec. 8, trustees extended Superintendent Mark Foust’s contract through January 2029.
Foust was appointed superintendent in January 2023 and has led the fast-growing district through a period of rapid enrollment growth and budget challenges, including layoffs and class size increases last year tied to funding shortfalls.
The committee is intended to support one of the district’s three strategic goals, which focuses on recruiting, valuing and retaining highly effective staff, according to district documents. The committee will be fact-finding and advisory, with no final decision-making authority, and will report its recommendations to the board.
Trustees appointed board President Jennifer Murphy and members DeAnne Hatfield and Jeff Dearing to serve on the committee for the 2025-26 school year.
District officials emphasized that the committee was not created because of a state mandate but to bring structure and consistency to a process the board already used.
The move comes as superintendent contracts face increased scrutiny statewide. For example, a new Texas law limits tax-funded severance pay for superintendents and other executive employees to no more than 20 weeks of compensation and prohibits such pay in cases of misconduct. The law also requires additional transparency around severance agreements.
Foust ranked among the highest-paid Texas superintendents during the 2024-25 school year, earning a reported base salary of $390,229, according to Texas Education Agency data. That placed him 12th statewide at the time, above both the state median and average superintendent salaries.
District officials did not reference Foust’s salary directly during the meeting but said the committee will examine market data as part of its annual review process.
Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org or @matthewsgroi1.
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