Teachers Pay Increases while Dividing support, and more Cuts Ahead
By Shawn on Sep 11, 2012 in Schools
On Monday evening, the Dracut School Committee voted to sign a contract with the Dracut Teacher’s Union covering last year, this year and the next fiscal year.
Salary Step increase Chart from previous Contract
Among a number of other items, the contract allows for a 0% raise for last year, a 1.5% raise for this year, and a 1.5% raise for next year.
The agreement also removes “step and grade” increases for the current year.
The board voted 4-1 in favor, with Mr Sheehan voting against.
Sheehan’s concerns are with giving out raises during this economic difficulty, especially at the schools. He spoke to both negotiations with other unions who had all taken 0% raises throughout their contract periods, as well as to the hit the schools will take next year when the next pay increase goes into effect, as well as the step and grade increases.
He made the point that he has nothing but respect for the teachers, but does not agree with their
If this is a hard year, as Mr Miles said, what is next year going to look like?
Sequestration Cuts
We are starting to hear news reports on the coming “Sequestration cuts,” and Mr Stone referred to this tonight.
When trying to get a committee to work together to resolve the debt crisis at the federal level, the Congress voted to put in emergency devestating cuts if the committee did not come up with a resolution. These “sequestration” cuts were meant to be a threat to force the group to work together.
Instread, they walked away without a plan.
As of the first of the year, a trillion dollards in cuts are now about to go into effect unless the Congress votes to resolve the situation.
The press has mostly been about defense cuts, because the sequestration cuts affect defense disproportionately, and to the degree that our ability to defend the country would be curtailed significantly.
But tonight we heard the first fears from the other side of the cuts.
Superintendent Stone made the point that significant federal funding for education is also in plans to be cut, which would impact the next fiscal year (2013/2014) by a million dollars.
Many comments were made by school committee members calling on people to look to town meeting, and to rally residents for more money for schools.
Maybe some of that effort should be directed towards Rep Niki Tsongas and Senator Scott Brown (who spoke to this issue in Dracut last weekend) as well.
Upset in Teachers Union Ranks
When you look at the agreement, you hear that “step and grade” increases were given up for one year to get the 1.5% increases for years 2 and 3.
These step increases are given to new teachers as they work their first 5-10 years, helping to pay for education and to gain experience.
Trading these increases off towards raises for all means that the newest and youngest teachers are being forced to sacrifice in favor of the older teachers.
I’m told that the meeting to vote for this contract was less than amicable.
However, its very common for unions to “eat their young” when negotiating, choosing to favor the older members at the cost of the younger, usually by accepting raises knowing that they will force layoffs of the young.
Interestingly, because Massachusetts is moving towards evaluation of teachers being used in layoff selection, now we see the younger teachers being hit on thier increases instead.
But make no mistake, without fiscal changes I see more layoffs in next year’s school year.
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Rich Cowan | Sep 11, 2012 | Reply
This is a good summary. Thanks, Shawn.
It is worth mentioning that the town has the ability now (through the changes in the law governing seniority for teachers) to potentially lay off some of the older teachers if they don’t perform well in their evaluations. However, this will not occur until 2016.
Shawn | Sep 11, 2012 | Reply
Thanks.. there’s a couple misspellings I gotta get in there and fix later though.
Kyle | Sep 11, 2012 | Reply
I honestly think that a pay raise for teachers right now is bad timing. The school district is in a deficit, programs are being cut, class sizes are getting larger and larger, the high school remodel is being delayed (and even small things such as the school not being able to afford “agenda books” for students anymore). It was very bold of the teachers to ask for a raise given the dire circumstances the district is in. Since teachers get almost 4 months off throughout the course of the year (when you add up summer vacation and other vacations) I always thought that getting a part time job for the summer (like many of them do) would make up for the lack of a payraise.
Bill Pappas | Sep 12, 2012 | Reply
As far as the comment about older teachers not careing about newcomers. I have always complained about older teachers when it came time for a new contract. They cared very little about the ones below them. Their mentality is “I” got mine the hell with them. “I” don’t care if they lay them off. I got senority. It’s not only animals that eat their young.
Rich Cowan | Sep 13, 2012 | Reply
I got a little more detail on the effect of the changes in STEPS. What was unclear from the SC meeting description is whether a teacher losing her STEP increase for 2013 would get one STEP increase in 2014 or a double-STEP to restore her salary to what it would have been.
According to one of the affected teachers, the former is true. So a teacher who expected to reach the top of the pay scale in 2020 will not reach that milestone until 2021… assuming the STEPs are not taken away in 2015 and 2018 when the contract is negotiated again…
The impact of this is huge… the STEP increases are close to 5% per year (for the young teachers) and some had taken out loans and paid thousands of dollars in tuition costs over the last two years in expectation of an even higher increase effective 9/1/12. How is this teacher going to pay back their loans, now?
I don’t have exact amounts yet but the new contract is very close to revenue-neutral do to the pay cuts. Assume: 210 total teachers, including 70 teachers with 10 or fewer years experience and 10 new teachers to fill vacancies caused by retirement. This looks like an increase of ~400K in salary combined with a decrease of ~300K. This is less than a 1% change in teaching budget (not including paras) of about $15 million.
Given that state aid for education should continue to increase well over $100K, just with ordinary inflation, I don’t see this contract, even with its obvious problems, causing additional layoffs in FY14.
Patricia | Sep 15, 2012 | Reply
So tired of having to defend teachers’ jobs but I will do it nonetheless. We have 10 weeks off during the summer, & three weeks off for school vacation (Christmas, Feb., April). These are mandated days off per the school schedule – I do not choose to take these weeks off, & I cannot take any weeks off during the school year as most people can in their jobs. I did not become a teacher to have vacation time off – I do it because I love education and I love teaching kids. I work throughout each one of these “vacation” weeks correcting, reading, and preparing lessons, and I take classes over the summer and read and prepare for the next year.
Right now I have over 240 summer school projects to correct, and that’s only from the first 8 days of school. During the school year I work 60+ hours a week. We more than make up for the vacatime time off. If you don’t like the school schedule, lobby Congress to have school all year round – other states have year-round school. I would not mind teaching all year long, but you better be prepared to add air conditioning to the schools as all the students do in September and May and June is complain about the heat! Teaching in 90 degree heat is not conducive to learning (I have a thermometer in my classroom so I know that number is accurate).I have worked in two other industries besides teaching, and teaching is by far the most stressful, demanding, hectic yet rewarding career I’ve had. As for the raises, what they don’t publish in the newspapers is that we had a 0% increase last year, a 1% increase, then a .5% increase on day 46 of this school year. Next year is also a 1% increase followed by a .5% increase on day 91 of the school year. These aren’t even full 1.5% increases but nobody bothers to report that. Teachers are people too! We have bills, loans, car payments, and mortgages just like everyone else. Just as your bills & costs each year are going up, so do ours. Why people think they are qualified to say how much teachers “should be” making astounds me. I would never presume to go to my friends’ companies to ask how much they are making. I don’t ask other people’s bosses if they are “worth” their paychecks. Yet somehow people feel qualified to comment on teachers’ salaries. Try teaching for one week, then tell me how overpaid teachers are. The students of Dracut are the ones getting the raw deal. Dracut’s taxes are approx. $1,000 less a year than the average town in Massachusetts, but it’s the teachers’ contract that’s bankrupting the system??? Dracut teachers are among the lowest paid teachers in the state. Why do good teachers continue to stay employed in Dracut if they could go to ANY other local school system and be paid more more? Answer – they love the kids and they love the town. Please, stop blaming teachers for this town’s financial problems. Contact your selectmen and school committee and demand more for your kids. Hire a new town manager who has progressive ideas about how to create a budget instead of taking money out of the general operating fund to pay for new buildings like the town hall which leave very little money left for the fire dept., police, and school systems – services the entire town uses.
Rich Cowan | Sep 19, 2012 | Reply
hi Patricia – thanks for your comment… but what is lost in the conversation is that the district is apparently down about 65 teachers from 2007. According to the DOE site:
FY 2007: 276 teachers
FY 2009: 249 teachers
FY 2011: 233 teachers
FY 2013: 211 teachers, assuming 22 layoffs
Obviously this trend is not sustainable. Has the union leadership used the considerable resources at its disposable to begin a conversation about workload, class size, etc.? Why can’t I find the points you raised on the website of the Dracut Teachers Assocation (http://http://dracut.massteacher.org)?
Dan | Nov 6, 2012 | Reply
How did Town Meeting just approve a debt exclusion for the Voke when we have to cut positions in out own schools? That budget needs to be reviewed…..I hope Lowell decides to take it over….they can have it. we should provide the services to our students in our school. I almost threw up when one of the graduates said all students in the car shop department were given laptops! Can’t they share? And 9 million for AC unit….wasn’t Dracut told the AC was a luxury item and could not be put in? I lost 10lbs sitting at Town Meeting!
Karen | Nov 7, 2012 | Reply
Dan, get all your friends to vote against it at the ballot on December 11. I, too, am disgusted when I see the expenditures at the GL Tech, compared to local schools. They do not have to adhere to any budgetary cuts like the towns do — they get an amount from each town based on a 2 decades’ old formula that needs to be reviewed to see if it still makes sense.
Dracut updated the electrical at the Englesby through their maintenance department; why can’t the GL Tech do the same thing? Why does the GL Tech need us (and the state) to pay for ugly doors and doorknobs; why haven’t they been replacing them all along through their maintenance budget?
When the GL Tech reps say they don’t ever ask the towns for money I laugh. We are charging students a bus fee, but the GL Tech asks continually for more money for transportation funding. We are cutting teachers and increasing class sizes. Dracut has a 42M budget for ~4000 students while the GL Tech has a 37M budget for HALF as many. The amount of administrative staff at the GL Tech is unbelievable compared to Dracut’s staff.
The debt exclusion request may be small dollars each year, but it’s the principal of it that is galling. Why should the GL Tech incorporate any maintenance into their budget when they can just turn around and ask the state and local towns to fund it? The GL Tech reps are doing a huge disservice to their own home districts by not spending their budget wisely. Where is the accountability?
Dan — it’s time for Colleen Garry, Barry Finegold, and our Selectmen and School Committee members to demand that the state review the formula for funding tech schools and see if it is fair to all parties involved.
Rich Cowan | Apr 12, 2013 | Reply
The new teachers contract wage and salary chart is out, and it pays the teachers a bit less than the numbers in this article would suggest. And it confirms everything that “Patricia” said.
Not only that, it reveals the existence of a second, lower-pay wage scale for newer teachers going forward. Those hired in fy09 and later took a 3% pay cut compared to their peers. This will bring average Dracut teacher salary down quickly when the existing teacher workforce retires. But… with early retirement of teachers aged 55 (happening a lot, because of the extra workload teachers have been given) it will cost the town more because we then pay for 2 people on health insurance for 10 years until the retired teacher is 65. Penny wise, but pound foolish?
Here is the FY13 salary scale for teachers hired on or after 7/1/2009, effective after 46 days of this school year.
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/383085_10151407522273527_536770019_n.jpg