Financing public education in Minnesota is at the crossroads. School districts are cutting operating fund budgets for next year, because the Legislature provided minimum funding and voters last fall rejected extra levy referendums. Meanwhile salary costs and other costs, particularly health care, continue to climb.
School districts are cutting dollars, increasing walking distances for students, cutting sports and other co-curricular activities and charging fees for them and cutting staff and increasing class sizes. The untold story is school boards, in part, are cutting budgets so they can pay anticipated salaries and benefits for the staff. The sad fact is most of the school districts do not have much money in an operating fund reserve to pay those salaries. School districts also are mandated to subsidize special education, mandated but not funded entirely by the Federal and state Governments.
One place to save money during hard economic times is at the salary negotiating table, and this is a negotiating year for all teacher contracts.
Minnesota teachers are doing a good job of educating students and many are spending their own dollars to provide supplies for their students. Minnesota compares favorably with other states in comparing standardized college entrance test results.
Last school year Minnesota teachers were paid an average salary of $40,577, which ranks them 22nd in the nation where the average teacher salary is $42,929. The average starting wage for teachers in Minnesota is $27,000 and many of them, particularly in the math and sciences, are leaving the classroom for private industry.
Since staff salaries and benefits consume 85 percent of the district’s budget, any increases mean many school districts have to cut budgets to pay for them.
If school districts that are bleeding chose to freeze salaries for next year, only half the budgetary cuts would have to be made to pay them. Spiraling increases in transportation and health care would have to be addressed. Freezing salaries is not realistic, because Minnesota teachers have been slipping behind teachers in other states and in other professions, when looking at their ranking with other states.
On the other hand, if the Legislature had granted better increases for each school year, particularly in the 1990s, the budgets in most districts would be close to balanced.
Early salary settlements suggest some trends. Six members of the Association of Metropolitan School Districts have settled at an average of 10 percent over two years, which is likely to be the benchmark of most Twin Cities Area settlements.
Even during these tough economic times, most people would agree staff deserves a pay raise. Teachers on the salary schedule, however, automatically get an increase simply because they’ve been teaching one year longer. If they get more college credits or a higher degree, they get a bigger increase.. Results of salary negotiations merely sweeten the salary schedule and give raises to veteran teachers who have taught beyond the years on the schedule. To attract new teachers, entry level minimums on the salary schedule have to be raised, giving all teachers the same increase up and down the steps and lanes.
Unfortunately, the public is not involved in the salary negotiations process and therefore cannot influence the school board on the final outcome. These negotiations meetings, however, are open to the public, but they are difficult to understand and to track. The public, however, should be as interested in these salary negotiations as they are in organizing to get more aid from the Legislature and to pass levy referendums.
Meanwhile, school boards fearing a strike, end up paying more than they can afford.
The average revenue per student for this fiscal year not including community education, food and debt service payments is $7,027, according to data from the State Department of Children Families and Learning. Legislators are asking, if that’s not enough money, what is?
.Legislators and the public are beginning to wonder if there is a better way to pay staff and administrators.
One pressure point is the staff’s right to strike, which no doubt sometimes leads to higher settlements. Staff will fight efforts to take that right away, or even to have binding arbitration settle the dispute.
Some districts are experimenting with an alternative payment plan based on other considerations than experience and education. The Minnesota Legislature is helping out with $8 million performance pool to encourage school districts to try another way of paying teaches.
Staff needs to realize that the public believes a raise is deserved, but they must also realize that taking a lesser settlement during hard times could result in preserving more of their jobs, protecting the very class sizes they covet and continuing some of the services affecting their real customers: the students and their parents.
Editor’s note: This editorial was a product of the ECM Editorial Board.
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