School board approves budget, grants teachers three percent cost of living adjustment
WenEA members gathering at the school board meeting Aug. 10
The Wenatchee School Board voted unanimously Monday to approve a budget for the 2015-16 school year on that will provide cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for teachers, in addition to greater funding for classroom supplies.
This plan is supported financially by the Washington State biennial plan that was approved by state legislature June 29. The plan provides a 3.1 percent COLA for all public school employees, in compliance with the voter initiative I-732, over the 2015-17 school years. In addition, more than $150,000 of additional funding was provided to increase staff salaries for teacher, administration, and classified staff.
Wenatchee Education Association (WenEA) President Kris Cameron believes that the legislature is still failing to support public education despite a state Supreme Court decision and Washington state voters demands that public education be fully funded.
“It sounds really good,” Cameron said. “The problem is, most teachers are still going to have smaller paychecks than they did last year, even with the three percent… It’s a step in the right direction, [but] it’s just insufficient.”
“The Supreme Court’s McCleary decision set in motion some studies by the legislature. They looked at educator compensation, they looked at class size, the looked at what would be an adequate level of funding,” Cameron said, ”The legislature said ‘OK, we have to fully fund public education, let’s do some studies to determine what that level would be,’ and then they promptly ignored their own studies.”
On May 18, teachers in the Wenatchee School District held a walkout day to protest Washington legislature’s failure to fully fund education, waving signs and holding a rally to raise community awareness about the state of public education
“I think it [the walkout] was a factor, and I do think it helped. Our state union did some polling and said 86 percent of the people they polled were aware of the walkout,” Cameron said. “(The) legislature heard from a lot of community members about these issues.”
Despite the state budget’s text stating the 3 percent COLA will affect “all public school employees,” that is not quite true.
“The state is giving the 3 percent raise to formula staff. Based upon your school’s enrollment, you get funding for X number of teachers. If you end up hiring more teachers or classified staff beyond formula, the district has to pay that,” WSD Deputy Superintendent Jon DeJong said. “Let’s say in a school of 100 kids, the formula says four teachers, but we believe that the school requires five teachers. The state would not provide us with the funding to give the fifth teacher that 3 percent raise.”
According to DeJong, there are 28 teachers in the WSD that are “over formula,” and that funding for their COLA would have to come from the district itself. He affirmed that every staff member, regardless of formula, would receive the 3 percent COLA, as withholding those raises from 28 individual staff members “makes no sense.”
Fifty to sixty WenEA members met at the school board meeting to attempt to “team up” with the school district to improve working conditions and teacher salaries, according to Cameron.
See Kris Cameron’s official statement regarding the budget vote here
