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Pay in other counties rankles teachers
By ROBERT KING, Times Staff Writer Earlier this year, the state Department of Education took a snapshot of teacher pay scales around the state, and, where Hernando County is concerned, the results were not good. -- Starting pay ranked 46th of 67 Florida counties. -- The median, or middle, salary ranked 55th. -- The average of all salaries stood at 58th. To exacerbate things in the county-by-county competition for scarce teachers, Pasco County just increased its starting salary to $31,000. That's $5,400 higher than starting pay in Hernando. And Pasco has put a similar gap between itself and Hernando all the way up the pay scale. Yet, the thing that seems to have riled Hernando teachers the most this year is the discovery by the school district's finance director of a $3.3-million surplus in a long-overlooked account. The teachers want it; the School Board has other plans. Negotiations resume Tuesday. The teachers are seeking an average raise of 6.5 percent, all of their individual health insurance costs covered and the revival of an early-retirement program that was axed last year. The School Board has offered an average raise of 3.7 percent. It is willing to pay only for the increase in employee health costs. Teachers would still pay the $20 a month for individual coverage they do now. That's a negotiating gap of more than $1-million in a $90-million budget. Maureen Richie, the union's lead negotiator, said teachers have been team players in recent years, helping the School Board out of some financial jams. Now, things aren't so bleak. "I really think the last three or four years, we have not been demanding an extravagant amount for raises," she said. "This year, we just felt that since there was $3.3-million discovered, that we might try to get a little bit more and try to catch up." Every year, union leaders talk about the departure of good Hernando teachers for better pay elsewhere. In wake of what Pasco has done, that cry has never been louder. Richie, for one, makes $43,200 in Hernando. In Pasco, she could get $51,100. She lives in Citrus County and has no desire to commute farther than she does now to Parrott Middle School, north of Brooksville. But Richie said other teachers, particularly those who live close to the Pasco line, will be tempted. Stephen Stora, another union leader, is one of them. He could make an extra $7,000 if he crossed over. Next year, he might. "It's a tremendous amount of money," Stora said. John Long, the Pasco County superintendent, said he hopes his county's pay scale -- which is richer even than those in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties -- is successful at luring away good Hernando County teachers. "That's why we did it," Long said. Hernando County superintendent Wendy Tellone said she had her finance director, Carol MacLeod, try all last week to figure out how Pasco managed to lift its salaries so high. If they have a secret, she wants to know it. Long said the formula was simple. When the state cut funding to all school districts last year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, his district absorbed the cuts by trimming its administrative costs. When the money was restored this spring, Pasco gave it to teachers. "We didn't think there was anything we could do that would be better for kids," Long said. Hernando cut its district-level costs, too. But not all of the cuts were recurring expenses. Long said Pasco gained ground by shrinking those costs that come back every year. It is that kind of prioritizing that leaders of the teachers union want to see from the board and the superintendent in Hernando County. "We need more than lip service," Stora said. "Everybody agrees that this is what we need to do. But I'd like to see it done." Part of the problem, as Stora sees it, is that teachers get only the money the School Board has left over when it has covered all of its other pet priorities. He said that was true with the $3.3-million discovery MacLeod made earlier this year. District officials said they wanted to use the money to pay off their health care debts and increase their rainy-day fund. They said putting the $3.3-million discovery toward salaries is a bad idea because it is a finite pot of money that will be gone once it is spent. If no money is found to replace it, they argue, pay gains given this year might have to be taken back next year. Stora doesn't buy it. "What we're hearing is we have to do this, we have to do that, and whatever is left we can see what we'll do about teacher salaries," Stora said. "What we're saying is maybe that is the wrong way to look at it." District officials said they don't have as much flexibility with the budget as teachers give them credit for. MacLeod said about 85 percent of the budget goes to salaries and benefits. Another 10 percent pays for utility costs. The remaining 5 percent is where the flexibility lies. And while salaries may lag, they said, Hernando teachers may be doing better in other ways than their peers elsewhere. In areas such as class sizes, supply budgets and supplements for extra duties, Hernando's teachers do better than many other counties, they said. Even Jo Ann Hartge, the former president of the teachers union, warned her angry colleagues recently not to be too zealous about a big raise. Some counties have scrounged up money for big raises by laying people off, she said. "Our main focus is to keep your jobs," Hartge told a group of teachers who showed up for the last bargaining session. But leaders of the teachers union look at the proposal Tellone made last week to spend more than $175,000 on new positions -- including a lawn turf maintenance job -- and shake their heads. "It's a matter of priorities," Stora said. -- Robert King covers education in Hernando County and can be reached at 754-6127. Send e-mail to rking@sptimes.com.
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