Give and take

Our school districts are hurting.

Student enrollment and the per-pupil state funding that follows it have steadily decreased in recent years. And as the Great Recession rolls along, state government’s overall spending on school districts is flat, leaving many school districts millions of dollars short of the amount needed to provide the kind of quality education they say students deserve, and the kind of pay increases and retirement benefits that teachers say they deserve for their longer work days and the larger classes they find themselves teaching.

The Eugene and Bethel school districts are asking their teachers, asking all of their employees, for a third straight year of contractual concessions this spring to balance their 2011-12 budgets. Bethel employees have already conceded, voting overwhelmingly last month to give up between $1.5 million to $2.7 million, depending on the outcome of the May 17 city income tax vote for schools. Meanwhile, the Eugene School District races against the fiscal-year clock in the hopes of convincing its more than 1,400 employees by June 30 that making pay and benefit concessions for 2011-12 totaling $7 million is the only way the district can craft a balanced budget.

The four-year income tax for schools would annually provide an estimated $12 million for the Eugene School District, and an estimated $4.8 million for the Bethel School District. The money would be used to stem the tide of teacher layoffs, thus keeping class sizes down, and/or restore instructional school days lost to employee furlough days.

But given that the recession is squeezing Lane County with a 9.5 percent jobless rate, how much are Eugene and Bethel school district employees really hurting? Have their paychecks shrunk in recent years? Or just not grown as much as employees wanted them to?

An analysis of employee contracts for both districts dating back to the 2007-08 school year, before the recession gained full steam and the districts began asking for concessions in 2009, shows that many salaries have essentially remained flat for the past three years. And some school principals, teachers and classified staff have actually received moderate salary increases over that time.

When district administrators and union representatives say that employees have been suffering cuts and making concessions, the reality is that rather than shouldering pay reductions, they have simply not been getting the often-rapid salary increases that they hoped for and their contracts initially promised.

And there is no shortage of administrators and managers in both districts who are making a comfortable living.

Forty-five Eugene School District administrators and central office staff will make salaries of more than $90,000 for the 2010-11 school or fiscal year, according to salary figures obtained by The Register-Guard under a public records request. And 24 Bethel School District administrators and district staff will make more than $80,000 this year.

In addition, all full-time employees in both districts receive substantial pension and healthcare packages. In the Eugene district, on average for every $100 the district pays a person in salary, it spends another $67 paying for the employee’s health care and for the public pension system.

Per-hour pay up

In June 2007, the Eugene Education Association, the union that represents about 300 teachers in the Bethel School District, and almost 1,000 in the Eugene School District, inked a rare three-year contract with the Eugene School District that called for teachers and other licensed staff to be paid for a 198-day work year, when the norm had been 191 days, by adding an extra six paid days for planning and training.

Contrast that with the current 185-day school year in the Eugene district, and the 182-day year in Bethel. Teachers in both districts agreed to cut paid days last spring as part of a second straight year of concessions. Yet teacher salaries in both districts this year are comparable to those of 2007-08, after a couple of years of increases due to step advancement based on longevity. Plus teachers, administrators and other employees are working a much shorter work year in 2010-11 because of unpaid furlough days. So, their hourly pay has actually increased during the ongoing budget crises.

For example, top-scale teachers in the Eugene School District made $69,632 in 2007-08 during a 198-day work year, according to the district’s 2007-10 contract with the EEA. After surpassing $71,000 in 2008-09 and 2009-10, this year’s top-scale teacher salary is almost exactly the same as in 2007-08: $69,581. But to make that money, the teacher puts in 13 fewer work days.

A top-scale elementary school principal in the Eugene School District made $90,355 in 2007-08 working 224 days. Those salaries rose to $93,065 in 2008-09 under a 3 percent “statement of understanding” cost-of-living increase, or COLA, for the 4J Association that represents the district’s principals. Those salaries were frozen at that same level in 2009-10 as principals agreed to concessions that eliminated what would have been a 3.25 percent COLA increase. This year, those salaries fell back to 2007-08 levels, $90,218, as principals last year agreed to concede nine furlough days for 2010-11.

A top-scale first year teacher in the district with a doctorate degree or a master’s degree plus at least 90 quarter hours of additional university study, made $41,975 in 2007-08, according to the EEA contract. Those amounts rose to about $43,000 the next two years, then fell to $42,126 this year under the 185-day one-year concession agreement the EEA made with the district last year.

Breaking all these amounts down to per-hour pay, top-scale teachers are making $47 an hour this school year, versus $44 an hour in 2007-08, assuming an eight-hour work day, while working 13 fewer days because of furlough.

Many teachers will argue, though, that they’ve worked plenty of unpaid overtime in recent years to keep up with larger classes, greater student-achievement benchmarks and simply trying to do more with less.

“It’s just made our jobs very difficult,” Monroe Middle School teacher and EEA bargaining chairman Tom Di Liberto said. “And then, to ask us to give up more?”

Top-scale elementary school principals in the Eugene School District made about $50 an hour in 2007-08 working 224 days. This year, they are making about $52 an hour because of the reduced 215-day work year.

Top-scale first-year teachers would have made about $26.50 an hour in 2007-08, and about $28.50 an hour this year while working 13 fewer days.

In the Bethel School District, a top-scale teacher made $62,859 in 2007-08 working a standard 192-day work year, according to the EEA contract with the district. Those amounts rose to $65,373 in 2008-09 and then fell to $64,692 as teachers accepted concessions that resulted in two furlough days. This year, a top-scale teacher in Bethel makes $63,874 under a shortened 182-day contract. Thus, in 2007-08, top-scale teachers in Bethel made about $41 an hour; and this year they are making close to $44 an hour, assuming an eight-hour work day.

A top-scale elementary school principal in Bethel made $86,527 in 2007-08 working 216 days, about $50 an hour. This year, despite concessions that reduced their work year by 11.25 days, those principals are making $89,264, about $54.50 an hour, because of a COLA increase and step agreements that took place mid-year.

A top-scale first-year teacher in Bethel in 2007-08 made $40,957 working 192 days, about $26.50 an hour. This year, those amounts would be $41,619 working 182 days, about $28.50 an hour, same as the Eugene School District.

Looking at salaries of classified staff, and taking an example of a custodian in each district, those salaries seem to have survived and even increased despite concessions for those workers, too.

Top-scale salary for a full-time, year-round (261 days) custodian in the Eugene School District in 2007-08 was $30,839, according to the district’s four-year contract with the local Oregon School Employees Association that expires Sept. 30. This year, despite a reduced 254-day work year, that custodian’s salary would be $32,491. Those numbers translate to $14.77 an hour in 2007-08, and $15.99 an hour this year.

In Bethel, a top-scale custodian made $33,508 in 2007-08 working 260 days, according to the Bethel Association of Classified Employees 2007-10 contract with the district, and $35,000 this year, working a furlough-shortened 250-day work year, according to the current three-year contract. Those numbers translate to the top-step hourly pay of $16.11 in 2007-08, and $17.50 this year.

Although many employees might be making as much as they did three or four years ago, even more in some cases, Bethel Superintendent Colt Gill says they have still made great sacrifices to help the district balance its budget the past three years. Regarding a hypothetical example of a teacher with a bachelor’s degree and no further education, who is on step 8 in the salary scale, that teacher is making $41,889 this year, Gill said. That’s $4,000 more than they made in 2007-08, he said. But it’s $3,497 less than they would be making — $45,386 — if teachers had not agreed to concessions in the past two years, Gill said. That’s 7.7 percent of their salary, he said.

True salary cuts

While the Eugene district was able to limp through the budget crises of the past two years by securing deals that have largely temporarily frozen per-employee pay, this time around the situation is even worse.

Now, facing a record $21.7 million budget shortfall for 2011-12 (15 percent of its operating budget), the district is asking teachers to take first-ever true salary cuts — albeit very small ones — instead of freezes or more-modest increases. The current offer on the table is cuts of 1.9 percent, down from the April 13 opening offer of 2.6 percent. Plus, the district is offering step increases of 1.85 percent, versus the 3.7 percent step increases in the current 2010-13 EEA contract. The net effect of half-step increase of 1.85 percent and the 1.9 salary cut would mean most teacher salaries would drop by a few hundred dollars.

Both sides have agreed to keep a shortened school year again, this time by six days instead of seven, for a 186-day work year. But the district’s proposal would make two of those furlough days paid holidays, after initially asking the teachers to give up all five paid holidays. The district’s also asking teachers to give up payments the district makes for them into the Public Employees Retirement System, or PERS, on tax-sheltered annuities.

“The key difference in what we are looking for now is concessions of an ongoing nature,” said Christine Nesbitt, the district’s associate human resources director and lead bargaining negotiator.

About 85 percent of the Eugene School District’s annual general fund operating budget goes toward employee salaries and benefits. The amount spent on compensation has shrank in recent years, from $127.8 million in 2007-08, to a projected $121.6 million this school year, and a projected $115.5 million for 2011-12, according to figures provided by the district. Of course, the district’s full-time equivalent employment has shrank, too, from 1,604 in 2007-08, to 1,485 this year, to a projection of 1,333 in 2011-12 if the city income tax does not pass on May 17. The district issued tentative layoff notices to 109 teachers in February and 77 classified workers last month, and is also planning to eliminate as much as 10 percent of its administrators.

Union representatives say the solution is for states to come up with more money for public schools, said Bill Raabe, director of collective bargaining for the National Education Association.

School districts need to look at their teachers as an investment if they want to retain the best ones, said Becca Uherbelau, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Education Association, an affiliate of the NEA.

Teacher salaries are lagging behind that of comparable professions, she said. A better tax system needs to provide more money to schools, Uherbelau said. “We’re focusing on long-term solutions,” she said. “We know what quality education looks like and what it costs.”