Outgoing Superintendent Barbara Eretzian has a pretty sweet deal with the Auburn School Department: She’s retired and still earning $750 a day to work for that district.

Eretzian signed a contract last June to serve as an educational consultant for the city of Auburn’s education department for the 2007-08 school year, agreeing to accept $45,000 for 60 days’ work.

The one-page contract is remarkably brief, with absolutely no detail of what sort of consultation services Eretzian is expected to perform. We can surmise it is to consult on superintendent duties, since that was her last post with the Auburn School Department, but we wouldn’t know it from the contract.

According to Business Manager Jude Cyr, Eretzian’s contract requires her to work up to 60 days for the agreed-upon fee, and since the start of the school year she’s been routinely working about three days a week from the Auburn School Department’s offices. Eretzian is no slouch, so we expect she’s dutifully fulfilling her contract in her usual professional manner, but the fee she’s being paid for the work is excessive.

It’s more than excessive.

It’s beyond ridiculous.

It’s that never-quite-trimmed fat in the budget.

Eretzian was still serving as superintendent when the budget was set for this school year, a process in which she and the school committee searched for $561,338 in spending cuts to keep open the East Auburn Community School, keep four assistant high school principals and maintain the sports programs at Edward Little High School.

The district found those cuts in the shape of 5.5 teaching positions and a guidance secretary, all of whom were retiring anyway, and one gym teacher’s position that had to be eliminated. Also cut were several crossing guards, and $72,014 for teacher training and certification. But buried in the budget was $45,000 to pay Eretzian to consult for the superintendent’s office.

That’s $750 per day to assist incoming Superintendent Tom Morrill, help him get acclimated and to chair certain committees that Morrill simply doesn’t have time to chair.

She has, essentially, continued her superintendent services as a paid consultant for the Auburn School Department.

We have to wonder, how much consultation does Morrill really need in his new role?

He’s been serving as Auburn’s assistant superintendent since 2003, bringing 30 years of experience in education to his post. He was hired without a search for any other candidate and appointed with no public discussion, so he’s clearly the man Auburn wants on the job. Morrill’s appointment as interim superintendent was made in March, months before Eretzian was set to retire, which should have been plenty of time to get familiar with the superintendency.

And, yet, Eretzian remains.

When asked whether the former superintendent’s consulting fees would continue in the 2008-09 school year as a budget item, School Committee Chairman David Das said that hasn’t been decided, but will be decided during the upcoming budget talks.

There’s only one decision that could be made when considering retaining this $750-a-day fee. It has to go.

Morrill’s annual salary is $103,000. Figuring a base 365-day calendar, minus weekends and about four weeks of personal vacation time, we informally calculate Morrill may work 293 days in the school year. Based on his base salary, he makes about $351 per day.

Under Eretzian’s contract, she’s making more than twice Morrill’s daily earnings.

She may be valuable, but there is no justification for this fee when Auburn is cutting teaching positions.

No justification at all.