I didn't know this site existed: RAS Compensation
This may help you speak schoolese: Steps and Lanes
Per DJ's question: Should the Teachers get their Step and Lane adjustments in these hard times? My belief is that the pay matrix should be held fixed, however the Teachers should get the Step and Lane increases they have earned. I don't think most folks would consider them over paid... Besides, what is good for the Supt is good for the employees??? (~2%/yr...)
Now if only the Union would give up that frustrating and limiting tenure thing...
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7 comments:
Give2Attain,
Thank you for the links. I didn't know this existed either. I will review it more closely this week.
I agree that when the RAS Board approved the Superintendent's contract it set-up your question and expectation for the unions. I wrote after they approved his contract that exact issue.
I am of the belief that in hard time ALL parties must share in the spending decreases or no increases. Based on the current economic reality, any increases (regular, Steps or Ladders) will cause lay-offs increased class sizes and reduced programs (SPENDING DECREASES) in the next years. So the community and RAS Board must decide what they are willing to accept.
RAS CAN"T CONTINUE THIS UNSUSTAINABLE SPENDING. People costs are the majority of RAS spending annually, so they must get it under control. You can only reduce the number of employees or hold the cost per employee to ZERO INCREASE year over year.
I have to think about what other cool stuff is on the web you might not know about. I remember posting all of those links back in the day.
Notice the contract that is missing from that list? The sup's. I argued so many times that we should have that contract and salary information on the web. I was never able to get it up there. Also note how the cabinet members don't have their salary information posted either.
Last random note, my favorite contract is the cabinets and the "Hold Harmless Clause" in it. Always wished I could get one of those. (I'm sure that is standard language - I just always liked the language.)
OK - back on subject now. So I blogged about the salary increase of a new teacher. From 2005 to current contract a new teacher would have gotten $5,500 in steps over that time. Equating out to about 3.4% raises each year. I'm with John on this one - you have to hold it status quo on the steps/lanes for the next two year. Now, you have to give teachers the step/lane (cannot do a Forest Lake here) but that equates to something like a 1.5% raise for all teachers under year 10. Those in year 11 to 15 and 22+ would basically be frozen then.
But the only way the teachers are going to go for this is if you fix health insurance. It's a mess in RAS right now. Has been and will continue to be unless major changes happen at the state/federal level.
DJ
Good points. I have often wondered if I would prefer the raise or additional employees to help me with the work. Assuming the budget is fixed, a ~4% raise means a ~4% reduction in number of workers... On 2,000 employees, that would mean ~80 need to leave. Meaning class sizes and stress levels increases again...
Or... Some transportation, Admin, etc choice costs need to be trimmed.
Also, I am not sure why the district does not post all the info here. It seems they have set precedent.
If I were a wagering person, the UNION NEGOTIATORS (Most senior teachers) would pick pay increases. This is based on discussion with a former school board member (different district) that was in contract discussions with the teachers union and was told that pay increases were more important than number of teachers (younger/newer/less senior). That tells me alot about the negotiators (looking out for NUMBER ONE/ME) view.
What I think is important is to let the school board members know how the community feels on these issues.
I believe that if the STEPS & LADDER increases are included that a PERFORMANCE based future increase system MOST BE INCLUDED with details that are made public and held in place going forward. Shared burdens on both sides.
It is a fascinating cycle...
1. Negotiate for wage/benefit increases.
2. Which increases class sizes and Parent/community dissatisfaction.
3. Lobby for additional revenue to hire teachers and reduce class sizes.
4. Start process over.
It has to be the only system that I know that can increase revenues by increasing customer dissatisfaction and offering lower performance. Most companies go out of business doing this. This entity grows by doing it. Fascinating !!!
Where are the motivators to become more productive or to constrain offerings to the "high value added" ones? If your customers are happy, who is going to raise the funding? And head count reduction may occur if the methods become too productive...
Seems really counter-intuitive...
Anyone want to help me understand how a system that functions like this is expected to improve?
In my company, yearly busn unit short term incentive payments are made based on yearly goals. This motivates the employees to improve efficiency, reduce costs, improve quality, improve productivity, promotes teamwork, etc. How would this work in a public school setting?
A reminder from Compensation Class: Be careful how you set the goals and compensation, or you may motivate some very poor behvior by accident... And change them occasionally, otherwise some people will find a way to manipulate them.
To have meaningful incentives, you have to have meaningful measurements of results. To have evaluate meaningful results, you must measure each teacher's, in fact, each employee's contributions. Most of the high paying jobs are unionized to avoid this very thing so that everyone gets paid the same, and paid well.
Have I answered your question?
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