Columbus schools offers smaller raises
Teachers would get consecutive annual raises of 1.5 percent this school year and 1 percent the next if they approve a final contract offer from Columbus City Schools — which is substantially lower than the deal reached only two years ago.
The offer was revealed in documents that the district’s lawyer at first claimed it did not possess, then clarified that he misunderstood what documents were being requested and finally provided the 8-page offer sheet late Wednesday afternoon in response to a request from The Dispatch under Ohio’s Public Records Act.
The union, the Columbus Education Association, is set to vote on the offer at a meeting Tuesday afternoon at the state fairgrounds. CEA President Tracey Johnson said Wednesday that she had no comment on the district’s offer.
In July, the year-over-year change in the Consumer Price Index was running at 1.7 percent, up slightly from June, the U.S. Department of Labor reported last month.
“Everything’s going up and they can’t even keep up with inflation,” CEA member Beth Stevenson, 63, a school nurse for 17 years, said of the proposed pay raises. “I’m anxious to see if our health-care benefits have increased.”
The current contract limits increases to the district’s portion of health-insurance to 8 percent a year, after which a joint committee can make plan changes and raise employee contribution rates to cover costs over 8 percent. The documents appear to show that the district tried to lower its exposure to 5 percent more each year, but withdrew that demand.
If teachers approve the deal, the 1.5 percent pay raise would show up in checks next month, retroactive to the start of the school year, the documents said. The district’s fiscal year starts on July 1. The lower-percentage increases were “due to the unexpected limitation in state funding for these years under the new state budget,” a note on the offer sheet said.
District spokesman Scott Varner said that no one from the district would discuss or explain the final offer, which lists dozens of changes to hundreds of pages of existing contract rules.
Two years ago, teachers secured a contract change that raised their pay scale for the first time since their union agreed to a freeze in 2011.
The scale rose by 1.8 percent for the 2015-16 school year, followed by a 2.2 percent boost in the 2016-17 school year. That contract also did away with “gainsharing,” a provision that had awarded bonuses based on students’ proficiency-test scores.
While the pay scale will increase some, teachers will also continue to qualify for larger “step increases” as they advance up the scale based on their education and years of service.
Last school year, that pay scale paid a starting teacher with a bachelor’s degree $40,705, rising to $81,615 after 31 years or more of service. Teachers who have master’s degrees are paid between $45,143 and $89,475 a year. Those with doctorates are paid between $48,941 and $96,123. Their work year contains 195 days, or 39 weeks, giving them roughly three months off.
Leave for teachers assaulted on the job has also been a sticking point in negotiations. The current contract allows for up to 40 days of leave due to injury from an assault on a teacher. Language that included “an emotional, mental, or physical” injury is crossed out of the district’s proposal, but does contain language that “a reasonable extension” can be agreed to in particularly severe cases without setting a precedent.
A special committee on assault leave can grant leave for mental or emotional injuries “certified by the teacher’s physician,” but it also could require a second opinion by a board-designated physician.
Also, new teachers would be required to advise their building administration of the estimated duration of any sick leave longer than one week. Another special committee would look into the feasibility and cost of providing every staff member “a secure location, cabinet, locker or drawer,” to safeguard personal items and official files.
The two sides would also agree to jointly examine the possibility of future employee buyouts.