The Board President of the Kansas City Head Start program defends the salary of its leader as well as the fringe benefits that goes with it. KCMC Child Development Board President Kenneth Spaulding tells the Kansas City Star’s Editorial Board Dwayne Crompton deserves the compensation he gets, because he’s given 26 years of service to the community, he’s nationally known and he’s given his life blood to the organization. Crompton’s $300,000 annual salary has so infuriated Congress that a Senate committee has approved a stipulation that would not allow any Head Start employee salary to exceed the $172,000 dollar salary of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who runs the agency that funds Head Start. In addition to the salary, Crompton gets a Mercedes SUV. Spaulding also tells the Star the board has a four-year plan to repay its $1.5-Million debt to the Kansas City School District.
