Teacher pay cuts vary by district; many ‘fortunate'

Teachers in many school districts have avoided the 1.9 percent pay cuts that were prescribed in Olympia and are on the table in Tacoma.

Pierce County’s three other largest school districts – Puyallup, Bethel and Clover Park – found other ways to make up for state budget cuts.

“The Legislature made the cuts and then they said, ‘Districts, you take care of it,’” said Doug Kernutt, Clover Park administrator for human resources. “Every district’s in a little different position.”

“We were able to deal with it,” he said, “and our teachers worked pretty hard to work with us through that. So perhaps we were fortunate.”

Educators elsewhere will take a hit. Unions have agreed to reduce pay in Federal Way, Peninsula and Franklin Pierce school districts, as part of deals that also allow employees to work fewer days. Seattle teachers agreed to one-and-a-half unpaid furlough days that started with a day off Wednesday.

Still other districts, from Spokane to Sumner, remain at the bargaining table with teachers. Sumner teachers will be working under their old contract when they return to school Sept. 7.

Some unions pushed for districts to dip into their reserves to stave off cuts to teacher paychecks. That’s what Bethel did as part of a contract the school board approved last week. University Place School District, too, agreed to make up the gap from its reserves this year.

So did Puyallup, drawing down $1 million without reopening contract negotiations. And Clover Park took $1.5 million from its fund balance, the district said.

Federal Way Public Schools agreed to reduce its unreserved fund balance to just 2 percent of spending to avoid pay cuts in the school year that starts today. An agreement signed by the district and union call it “the extraordinary measure of keeping members whole by reducing fund balance to unprecedented levels.”

“You can’t do it for more than a year and be fiscally sound or solvent,” said Sally McLean, the district’s assistant superintendent for business services.

So the district won’t do it next year. For the 2012-2013 school year, union bargainers have agreed to the 1.9 percent pay cut. Schools will close for three days and all employees will stay home without pay, probably in January, February and March 2013 while the Legislature is in session to allow employees to go down and give lawmakers a piece of their minds. Teachers will take another half-day of unpaid leave as well.

The plan requires state approval. It wouldn’t cut the school year, McLean said, because the closures would happen on days that would have been set aside for teacher work days or for conferences between teachers, parents and students.

The district and teachers union in Federal Way gush about each others’ cooperation. They reached their agreement over a couple days, the union said – and the agreement in principle took much less time.

“We just had a conversation with the superintendent,” said Jason Brown, Federal Way Education Association president. “It was all of about a five-minute conversation.”

It’s not that school districts aren’t cutting elsewhere. Dipping into reserves solved less than a third of Clover Park’s state cut. To find the rest of the money, the district has cut classroom assistants’ hours, laid off central-office staff, and let teachers and custodians dwindle through attrition, Kernutt said.

As part of the deal to avoid teacher pay cuts, Kernutt said, unions agreed their members would do more technology training.

At the other end of the spectrum, some districts are cutting training time to make up for teachers’ pay cuts.

The deal between Peninsula School District and its teachers eliminated two paid training days. To make up for the rest of the 1.9 percent pay cut, students in the Gig Harbor-based district will go home early three extra times this year, on the days before Thanksgiving break, winter break and Memorial Day weekend.

Three professional development days will become optional this year at Franklin Pierce, said Willie Painter, spokesman for the district sandwiched between Tacoma and Puyallup.

The first furlough comes as a half-day on Sept. 30, followed by a full day Feb. 6 and a day and a half next August, under the deal.

“Both parties knew the circumstances, and I think that they really came together and tried to work on a fair and balanced contracts,” Painter said, “and under the circumstances, I think we’re there.”

Jordan Schrader: 360-786-1826 jordan.schrader@thenewstribune.com