Ot salary question

[upmixdownmix]

New DUC'r here.
I am expecting an offer letter to be audio coordinator of a large (6500 member) church north of Dallas TX. I will lead a team of 15 volunteers and grow the team to (a goal) 40 members. Responsible for sound in 9 campus venues, coordination of rf mics, some audio post mixing, and mixing FOH every sunday. Very tech-heavy install, yamaha and Digi consoles, protools HD, recording studio. A 48-52 hour week is the average..I have 4 years experience in this role, plus 12 years experience as a recording engineer. Many big mix credits, etc...

Anybody know what the average salary that I should expect? I have an idea what it will take to sustain our family, but I want to make sure the offer is in the right "neighborhood" for a church of that size. I have googled for average salary, but there is not a slot for church tech in most search engines. Excited about the possibility, just want to be equipped to consider the job offer with care. Any help would be great. This is a really awesome forum!!
MM

[Scott Fahy]

Most larger churches base their salary on studies and survey's by a company called Varner(sp) Research. I would guess you can expect anything from $36,000 to $54,000 for a lead audio engineer, if they add more responsibilites then the salary could go as high as $70,000. We did a salary research about a year ago and those were the numbers that seemed to be consistent across the country. Obviously the cost of living in your local area would have an impact on the final salary. Keep in mind too that your salary will depend a lot on the other salaries in the church. If your church is in one of the very affluent areas of Dallas then who knows.

Scott

[dstagl]

Originally Posted by upmixdownmix

New DUC'r here.
I am expecting an offer letter to be audio coordinator of a large (6500 member) church north of Dallas TX. I will lead a team of 15 volunteers and grow the team to (a goal) 40 members. Responsible for sound in 9 campus venues, coordination of rf mics, some audio post mixing, and mixing FOH every sunday. Very tech-heavy install, yamaha and Digi consoles, protools HD, recording studio. A 48-52 hour week is the average..

Man, in my experience, 48-52 hour work week sounds extremely conservative for 9 venues with only 15 volunteers. Not knowing the exact specifics of what they're going to have you do, but knowing how a lot of churches think that just sounds like a very unrealistic expectation for a tech heavy install. PM or email me if you would like to chat more about this...

Dave

[timcorder]

I agree completely with Dave. I was reading this post this morning with another of our staff and we both had the same thought!

[Tragic Dog]

I also agree with Dave, having just left a church with 2 large venues, and 3 smaller venues, my work week was around 50 hours easy. You bring that number up to 9 and look out.

~Jon

[Scott Fahy]

We have only one site/campus and there are 2 full time audio people along with 4 to 6 volunteers and we consider 40 hours an "easy" week.
Scott

[sonicboost]

Same here - we have 9 live sound venues (but about 40 volunteers) and I'll average 50 hours a week easy. Not to mention that seasonal events (Easter, Christmas, concerts, conferences) usually mean a month worth of averaging 12-15 more hours than that. Its really fun and rewarding work if you like 'teaching' and 'discipling' people. In our paradigm here the tech team is kind of a flock inside the flock, so your duties should also include some pastoral care and counseling with them ideally.
eric