Photo Credit: Austin Steele/file

The Clarke County Board of Education has agreed to a three-year contract with new superintendent Demond Means that will pay him at least $209,000 annually, plus other benefits.

In addition to his base salary and the typical retirement and insurance benefits, Means will receive a $700 car allowance in lieu of mileage, and the district will pay $3,000 per year into a tax-deferred retirement plan. 

The school board can fire Means for cause or buy out the remainder of his contract. If Means resigns before the contract ends, he will owe the district $5,000.

CCSD will also cover Means' relocation expenses up to $10,000, as well as reimburse him up to $5,000 for his travel to and from Milwaukee between now and July 10, when the contract kicks in, and for "professional growth" such as college classes and conferences.

The contract prohibits him from taking on outside work, but he will be allowed to continue consulting with Indian Community School in Milwaukee through June 30, 2018.

The contract says Means is "encouraged" to live in Clarke County, but it does not require him to do so. Means has said he intends to send his 4-year-old daughter to a Clarke County public school.

The school board tapped Means as the sole finalist to replace Philip Lanoue in April and formally voted to hire Means away from the Mequon-Thiensville school district last Thursday, but a few details had not been worked out. CCSD released a copy of his contract earlier today.

Lanoue, the former National Superintendent of the Year, earned $178,000 a year when CCSD hired him in 2009 and $245,000 by the time he resigned last December. The Fulton County School District offered him $295,000 in February 2016 before he opted to stay at CCSD in the wake of the Cedar Shoals sexual assault scandal.

Means' salary falls in the middle of the board's $200,000–$220,000 salary range for the new superintendent.