in the news again
May 19, 2006
The Boston Globe ‘South’ just released a story discussing the salaries paid to teachers throughout the region. Again, Bridgewater-Raynham was at the top of the list. This has often led to discussions about layoff of young teachers while retaining older (and presumably) more expensive teachers; and thus higher averages. Without analyzing employee data for every position, this would be difficult to substantiate as correct or incorrect.
What can be looked at is the escalation of salaries. I have looked at the current three-year contract and its three-year predecessor. It seemed a five-year (comparing contracts, you can determine five increases in compensation.) timeframe would be a good benchmark. The Teacher’s contract has seven grades or tracks = Bachelors, Bachelors +15 credits, Masters, Masters + 15 credits, Masters +30 credits, Masters + 45 credits, Doctorate. (The most common application of stage is stated.) The following examples do not take into account any lateral movement (promotion to a new grade/level), but only show salary progression along their education grade. The starting salaries are for the 2002 fiscal/school year, and end next year (5 years later) with the 2007 fiscal/school year.
Bachelors 1st year starts at $32,739 and ends (2007=5 years later) at $48,224 (47.3% increase)
Bachelors 5th year starts at $40,367 and ends at $54,819 (35.8% increase) Note 'a'
Masters 5th year starts at $45,140 and ends at $62,430 (38.3% increase) Note 'a'
Masters + 30 5th year starts at $49,843 and ends at $67,837 (36.1% increase) Note 'a'
Doctorate 8th year starts at $58,658 and ends at $77,828 (32.7% increase) Note 'a'
Doctorate 13th year starts at $67,825 and ends at $77,828 (14.7% increase) Note 'b'
YOU started at $40,000 and ended at $45,256 after five 2.5% raises (13.1%)
Note ‘a’ = Potential for additional $600 based on longevity
Note ‘b’ = Potential for additional $2000 based on longevity and/or additional $1000 if s Step 20 employee
So, perhaps the problem in B-R expenses is not simply the 88/12 on healthcare, or if the announced raise was 2.5% or 3%. The real culprit in the finances is the fact that there are “double raises”. In that first example, the Bachelors-1 teacher ($32,739) not only gets a 4% raise the next year to Bachelor-1 ($34,049), but they become a 2nd year or Bachelor-2 teacher ($35,897) and another 5%. Mathematically, this becomes a 9.6% increase in salary from one school year to the next.
Even when the community might think it is saving money by agreeing to a lower announced raise, there is still the matter of these employees moving through 13 (and now 20) steps - each step guaranteeing a raise in itself.
Maybe it is time to review this “double raise” mechanism. A first year teacher is automatically going to make more money in year two no matter what raise was announced.
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Joseph Gillis Jr.
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