Teachers union: Salaries are bone of contention

Salaries are the main point of contention as the Mountain View School District and the Central Idaho Education Association prepare to head into mediation over 2018-19 teacher contracts.

At the center of the disagreement is what association President Char McKinney describes as a flawed salary ladder. According to McKinney, increases in wages spanned the gamut in past years for the district that includes schools in Grangeville, Kooskia and Elk City. Some teachers didn’t get an increase, while others got a substantial bump in pay.

After mediation for the 2017-18 school year, teachers agreed not to move up on the salary schedule, and instead took a $972 stipend added to their base pay as part of an agreement that the salary ladder would be fixed during this year’s negotiations.

But that hasn’t happened because the attorney representing the school district declared an impasse, according to minutes from the June 11 negotiation meeting.

“Our job is to educate the kids, and nobody expects to get rich,” McKinney said. “We are not in that kind of job, but being reasonable about it and fixing (the salary schedule) is important because it’s flawed.”

Following last year’s agreement to accept the stipend, several new employees are now making more money than teachers who have been with the district longer.

McKinney said the goal is to come up with a salary schedule that is equitable for all by tying teachers’ education level and current years of service to their wages.

In the last proposal the association presented to the district at the June 11 meeting, the union asked for $480,000 for salaries.

The union was willing to decrease its request but never got the chance, McKinney said.

“We clearly asked repeatedly for them to give us a counteroffer, to give us something to work with,” she said, stating it didn’t happen.

The union proposed a salary ladder that would put the minimum teacher salary at $37,859, about $2,000 more than the minimum required by the state.

Under the proposal, teachers would get a $1,500 raise, McKinney said. The maximum salary if a teacher has a master’s degree and at least 14 years of experience would be $63,602.

Currently, the maximum amount a teacher can make is $60,722. Of the 84 teachers in the district, McKinney said only three make that amount.

According to school board president Mike Dominguez, contracts with a 4 percent increase were mailed to teachers. But McKinney said the contract she received for the 2018-19 school year only showed a 1.75 percent increase.

Once a contract is agreed upon through mediation, it will supersede the contracts previously sent out.

After the approval of a $3 million levy, renewed funding of the Secure Rural Schools Act and “new money” from the state for teacher salaries, McKinney said now is the time to remedy salary discrepancies.

“Right now is a very unique opportunity for them to fix the inequities that they agreed last year contractually they were there to fix,” she said.

Dominguez previously said it wouldn’t be fair to use the levy or Secure Rural Schools funding for salary increases because that’s not what the money is intended for. He said pulling from the levy would hamper any future attempts to renew it.

At one point some thought the union’s request would make Mountain View’s pay the second-highest among the state’s school districts, but June 11 meeting minutes show both parties agreed the chart provided by the district contained inaccuracies.

“We’re not even close to the rest of the state,” McKinney said. “You can’t compare us to places like Boise or West Ada. We are not in the same league as what they pay their teachers.”

The proposed salary schedule would have placed the district at the midway point of the 14 other school districts in the region, McKinney said.

The superintendent and board members were not present at the negotiation meetings, McKinney said. The district has been represented by an attorney, a situation the union has questioned because of cost.

The mediation meeting is scheduled for Aug. 16.

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Tomtas may be contacted at jtomtas@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2294.