Area schools balance salaries and other spending
By Meryn Fluker, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
The school board also will have given instructors and full-time certified administrators, including Pinion, salary increases of almost 4.4 percent.
"It just traditionally has been whatever the settlement is for the teachers, is what we use for the other groups," Pinion said, noting that 2014-15 is the second year of a two-year contract agreement for teachers that was negotiated before administrators confronted a
Numbers from the Marion district show that, despite the raises, salary and benefits spending overall will have declined --
"In reducing some positions, we're asking some people to do more," Pinion said. "So when you're asking people to take on more responsibilities and more workload, is that right to say, 'We're going to compensate you less or hold you to the same compensation level? I think it's asking a lot of an employee and I also believe that naturally, every year, there's to be more things that are expected of schools, teachers, of any employees in a district, based on local conditions, state conditions and federal conditions."
A similar scenario played out in the
What's trending
"We aim not to exceed the district's actual new money from the state. That's our goal. I think that's districts' goal across the state. We're also stuck with the fact that we also have to look at what the trend is for districts across the state. If we were to go to arbitration, that's what the arbitrator would look at," said
That challenge chafes
"We would lose and lose badly," he said. We're really handicapped in trying to negotiate those salaries down."
During leaner years of low or even no state funding increases,
"When you don't have the new money growth from the state but you still have a state trend, so you're trying to balance trying to stay competitive with staff when (other districts') new money might be higher," she said. "If you don't get any raise at all and the cost of living increases ... it's kind of seen or viewed as a decrease in salary."
There's also an aspect of competition.
"You want to retain the good staff you have," Cirivello said. "If they're going to another district that's going to pay them
Cirivello said it has taken hard work but employees have been willing to compromise and take the district's financial situation into account during those tighter years and are willing to be flexible.
"It really is a wonderful thing that they're helping us maintain that line with new money," she said. "They should be commended for that."
Mind the gap
Wawro said that there are a number of other factors -- such as time off, class size and safety or health concerns -- that are discussed before or instead of dollar amounts. She also noted that while percentage increases can seem large, sometimes they belie rising insurance costs that may not be addressed in a settlement.
"People have a real fallacy that if you're a public employee you have this real grandiose insurance policy," she said. "Any increase in that comes out of that package as well. When you see a 3 percent salary increase, that's everything. ... If your cost of insurance went up (by more), you actually lost money."
"If you don't keep doing with that percentage is you keep getting to a point now where the highest paid teachers are making more than our lowest-paid administrators," Barkley said. "You have to keep a gap there or you're going to lose out on good administrators and good administrators do make a difference. ... You have to keep an incentive there or people aren't going to go back to school invest the time to be in administration."
In Wawro's view, percentage increases among administrators -- whose salaries skew higher -- are tough to compare to teachers and their traditionally lower salaries.
"Even if everyone got 3 percent, it's still a huge salary difference when a superintendent gets a 3 percent increase on
The broader issue, Wawro said, extends beyond pay stubs and into what she sees as insufficient state education funding.
"We need to spend so much time figuring out how to do the best we can with no money," she said. "In theory it's not about salary when you're doing that. Our fuel costs go up. All of our costs go up. Our vendors' prices go up. It's everything. It's not just about salary. When you're looking at some of our urban districts who honestly need more staff to work with English Language Learner populations, students with behaviors, students in poverty, that's staff, not just salaries."
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