The Dartmouth School Committee voted at a March 7 meeting to formally approve the job descriptions for two new administrative positions in the district, but stopped short of setting a salary range for the posts.

The newly created jobs would be for curriculum directors at the elementary and secondary levels.

The new positions will split the role of current Director of Teaching and Learning Tracy Oliveira when she leaves the school district this September, according to Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations James Kiely.

Though the committee unanimously agreed that the new positions needed to be created and filled, committee member Chris Oliver said that he was concerned about the projected salary range for the posts.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bonny Gifford said a current draft of next year’s budget sets aside $116,000 and $120,000 as placeholders for the salaries of new administrators, but that final salaries could be higher depending on the qualifications of the candidates.

“I have some serious concerns with salaries,” Oliver said. “It seems to me there’s a growing disparity between our administrators and our teachers.”

Oliver said that based on his preliminary research, he wouldn’t feel comfortable paying a curriculum director more than $125,000 a year, but that he would like to see a salary survey done before setting a range.

Other committee members pushed back though, asserting that paying employees well would be the only way to keep good administrators around.

“My position is trying to grow good leaders and trying to keep them in the district,” said Gifford, explaining that she hopes some in-house candidates would apply for the positions and that it would therefore be important to make them feel like a step up.

Committee member John Nunes agreed with the superintendent.

“There’s an old adage: you pay peanuts, you get monkeys,” he said. “We have to leave that salary range to Dr. Gifford and Mr. Kiely.”

The committee concluded its discussion by agreeing to get more complete salary data before coming back to the issue at its next meeting on March 21.