Editorial: Share the pain
Teachers' raises hard to justify as taxpayers are forced to make do with less
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 2:54 AMThe Columbus Dispatch
Crisis fosters change. The prolonged economic stress that is hurting Ohio families and businesses should be the force that finally challenges the hold public-school teachers long have had on generous yearly pay raises.
Under typical union contracts, most teachers receive a double boost every year -- negotiated, across-the-board base-pay increases plus "step" increases for gaining another year of seniority -- regardless of the teacher's performance or the school district's financial fortunes. Last school year, the average of those combined raises in Franklin County districts ranged from 5.9 percent to 8.8 percent, while the average raise for private-sector employees in the U.S. was 1.8 percent.
That's not going to fly for long.
For school districts, persuading voters to approve new taxes is getting harder than ever. Voters are asking more questions about how schools spend money, and they naturally are focusing on salaries, because salaries make up more than three-fourths of the typical district budget.
In the Hilliard and Worthington school districts, formal groups have arisen to question district spending. EducateHilliard.org and EducateWorthington.org offer thoughtful Web pages with information questioning school spending priorities. Though they clearly advocate scaling back spending, they're not knee-jerk anti-tax groups.
They could well attract the interest of residents who support their schools and generally have voted for levies but who are concerned about the endlessly upward trajectory of taxes and spending.
Employees in many districts have responded with voluntary measures, such as decisions by the administrators, support workers and teachers in hard-pressed South-Western City Schools to forego this year's scheduled raises.
Still, for the teachers, that left the step increases in place, as many voters faced pay cuts and layoffs. And it wasn't enough to win passage of an operating levy Aug. 4.
That failure, which left the state's sixth-largest school district with no sports or extracurricular activities this fall, is opening some eyes to the idea that administrators and teachers may have to accept true pay freezes, as so many of their charges' parents are, if districts are to pass new taxes.
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