New city schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos is the city’s highest paid employee – far exceeding the mayor’s salary – after she inherited the raise awarded to her predecessor David Banks, The Post has learned.
A Bronx-born mom, 42, Aviles-Ramos will get a whopping $414,799-a-year, a big jump from her last $232,754 Department of Education salary.
In addition, she will receive a wide range of fringe benefits, paid vacation and sick days — plus a car and driver, according to an Oct. 15 letter of appointment by Mayor Adams.
Ex-chancellor Banks got the wage increase to $414,799, up 12.5% from $363,346 in the latest round of citywide managerial raises. Adams pushed the schools chief out in mid-October after the FBI seized Banks’ phones in an ongoing corruption investigation.
Mayor Adams did not get a raise, his salary remaining at $258,750.
While Banks retired after 40 years in the city Department of Education, Aviles-Ramos joined the DOE as a teacher 17 years ago, and quickly rose up the ranks in nine different jobs, including principal, deputy superintendent and Banks’ chief of staff.
Aviles-Ramos briefly left the city in January to become a vice president at private Monroe College, but returned in July as deputy chancellor for family and community engagement and external affairs – apparently in anticipation of succeeding Banks.
Banks’ wife, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, who also quit in a wave of City Hall departures, was getting $313,941 with a raise from $275,000.
The next highest-paid city employees are Lisa Bova-Hiatt, NYCHA CEO at $393,531; Steven Meier, Chief Investment Officer and Deputy Comptroller for Asset Management, at $373,320; and Marek Tyszkiewicz, Chief Actuary at $349,723.
This week, Aviles-Ramos went to the SOMOS political conference in Puerto Rico with two other DOE officials, Cristina Melendez and Kenita Lloyd.
“She is the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in this position,” in a school system where 42 percent of kids are Hispanic, DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer said.
He refused to say whether the city is paying for the trips, but a City Hall spokeswoman said taxpayers are funding the flights for several other government officials, who are also eligible for reimbursement of other expenses.
