Web site to reveal salaries (teachers' salaries)

Times Leader ^ | 1/22/2005 | BONNIE ADAMS

[Born Conservative]

The union representative is angry about publication of salary, reimbursements and sick days amid contract talks.

WRIGHT TWP. - Every Crestwood teacher's salary, tuition reimbursements and related pay hikes, plus accrued sick days will soon debut on the school district's Web site.

School board member Gene Mancini Jr. said it's a way to inform the public as contract negotiations continue, but union representative John Holland called the move "offensive and irresponsible."

"It's the public's right to know," said Mancini, who serves on the contract negotiation team. He said the board held a public session in November and next week's planned release of salary and benefit information is a continuation of that.

Holland said school board President Bill Jones and the "other clowns" on the board need to stop playing political games.

"They can put whatever spin they want on it," said Holland, an attorney with the Pennsylvania State Education Association. He said the board is doing a great disservice by trying to generate public sentiment against teachers.

"It tends to make people disrespectful of the teachers," Holland said. He said the teachers' salaries are reasonable given the number of years they have worked at Crestwood.

"The numbers are staggering," said Mancini of teachers' salaries and health benefit amounts. The 2004-2005 spreadsheet the school district compiled lists 27 teachers being paid the top annual salary of $71,408. The district pays more than $14,000 annually for some teachers' health benefits.

Lesser paid teachers received $25,854 a year and some health benefits cost the school district $5,200 annually.

The information lists one teacher's salary increase of $20,000 for additional academic credits and another teacher as having accrued $11,970 worth of sick days at $35 per day.

Holland, the PSEA attorney, acknowledged that some information the district plans to release is public, but if it is releasing information on accrued sick days, people can easily determine what teachers have been sick based on the 10 allotted sick days per year.

Holland cited the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability or HIPAA act that safeguards medical information. "They can proceed at their own risk."

He noted that the district and the Crestwood Education Association are entering the fact-finding stage of negotiations. The state Labor Relations Board on Tuesday assigned fact-finder Alex Kaschock, who has 40 days to issue non-binding recommendations.

"Let the process work," Holland said Friday. He said this is not the time for the district to post teacher information on its Web site.

School district Solicitor Jack Dean said members of the public have requested the information and now they will be able to determine the financial impact of the proposed contracts.

The district Web site already contains a side-by-side comparison of the union and district collective bargaining proposals, the millage impact and the district's last offer on Nov. 9, before the strike.

The school district's 160 teachers, librarians and some other employees are working under the terms of their old contract, which expired in August 2002.

[Amelia]

You have entirely missed the point of my post. It was not a complaint about my own situation. It was to point out the detached reality that teachers live in.

Most non-teachers have a "detached reality" of what it is to be a teacher. They imagine a teacher sitting behind a desk with her feet propped up doing nothing for 6 hours a day, 190 days per year, while 30 happy children quietly do their work.

Teachers in well-to-do northeastern suburbs might make salaries near $100K, but most of us in the rest of the country don't. Many of us don't make half that.

I'd love to see market forces at work in education, however...those of us with science and math degrees would make a lot more money!