The Houston Chronicle's Ericka Mellon brings us a handy guide to area school superintendents' compensation packages, which are enlarged with money for cars, club memberships and fancy phones like the BlackBerry device.

Base salary, which for area schools' top officials starts around $200K, makes up the bulk of the taxpayers' bill. Not that outrageous when you consider the six- and seven-figure salaries of other executives responsible for a customer base the size of Houston.

But the superintendent contracts' bells and whistles are what may make your eyebrows shoot up.

Lunch clubs? Personal drivers? $14,400 business expense accounts? All in a day's work, I guess.

Check out the story here, and click here to see a side-by-side chart (in PDF) of school chiefs' contract packages, by the Chron's Edwin Louie.

Photo of a BlackBerry by flickr user edans, used via the Creative Commons license.