Ashland City Schools extends superintendent’s contract

ASHLAND – Ashland City Schools superintendent Doug Marrah’s contract now extends through July 2024.

District board members on Monday unanimously approved an early renewal of Marrah’s contract for five years, using a contract extension clause written into a 2016 amendment to Marrah’s contract.

The clause states that if the board found Marrah’s performance satisfactory in 2017, it would consider renewing his contract in 2018 rather than upon its expiration in 2019. 

“This was our intent when we originally negotiated to bring Dr. Marrah to the district,” board vice president Jim Wolfe said. “The nature of contracts with superintendents did not allow us to commit him here for this long of time, but it was written into his contract that we would have the option to renew early, and we are extending that option to ensure that we would have Dr. Marrah at the helm.”

According to the amendment, Marrah’s compensation includes an annual base salary of $150,000 as well as potential for an annual performance stipend not to exceed 3.33 percent of his base salary ($4,995).

He also receives two $5,000 annual stipends– one paid in lieu of reimbursement for travel, professional dues professional meetings, service club dues and fees and other appropriate expenses and the other to compensate for costs associated with transferring out-of-state retirement credits. 

Marrah has been superintendent in the Ashland district since 2011, when he was hired at a base salary of $120,000. 

Also during Monday’s meeting, the board selected Ashland based Simonson Construction as the design-build contractor for the district’s fieldhouse construction project at an estimated cost of approximately $3.5 million. 

The district has received pledges of over $1.3 million in private donations for the project and continues to raise funds. The remainder of the project will be paid for by the district using money already set aside for capital outlay, Marrah said. 

In addition to Simonson, the district evaluated RFP responses from Mansfield-based Adena Corporation and Mid American Construction, the Cleveland-based general contractor on the district’s recent middle and elementary school building and Archer Auditorium projects.