MARYSVILLE — While Marysville teachers continue their 24-day strike, disputing the district’s salary contract proposal, parents and others trying to understand the issues find that wading into the morass of teacher compensation packages is like unraveling a tangled ball of yarn.
Follow a budget line that says what the state wage rate is, and you snag on tenure and education.
Flip the page, and there may be a local salary rate schedule as well.
Add into that whether teachers are coaching, teaching summer school or directing plays, and you find more tangles to unknot.
There are asterisks and history lessons, too. Marysville, for instance, has been grandfathered in at a higher state salary rate than most other districts across Washington.
"It’s really complicated," said John Jenft, an Arlington-based school finance consultant and retired school budget director with more than 40 years in the business.
When teachers and their unions consider district compensation packages, they look at pay, benefits and a series of workplace issues ranging from class enrollment loads to planning time.
When districts and their elected boards look at what their budgets allow them to offer teachers, they consider everything from school supplies and building upkeep to pay for other employees and whether they have healthy reserve funds for emergencies.
Here’s a primer on teacher pay:
In general, there are two main parts to a teacher’s salary: money teachers receive from the state and money they receive from local taxes.
The two main salary parts are determined through a variety of ways including years of experience, education, locally bargained work days beyond the 182-day school year and whether a school district follows a state salary schedule or one that was negotiated at the local level.
"There are a lot of factors," said Kim Schmanke, a spokeswoman for the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Most of a teacher’s base salary comes from state taxes. Last year, the average salary contribution from the state toward a teacher’s salary in Washington was $45,371. By contrast, the average state contribution to the salary of a Marysville teacher was $46,724, according to state records.
Marysville and some other districts, including Everett and Mukilteo, were grandfathered in at higher rates more than 20 years ago because their teachers were receiving salaries that were higher than the state schedule at the time. In Marysville, that rate is 5.2 percent higher than most other districts.
The other part of the teacher’s salary comes from local tax money.
Depending on their experience and education, Marysville teachers could earn between about $3,500 and $7,865 a year in local money under the old contract. The two sides are still negotiating the amount that would go to local salaries and the number of days teachers would have to work.
Tom MacIntyre, president of the Monroe School Board, which recently reached a three-year contract with its teachers, said negotiating the salaries and benefits is tricky.
"I think the toughest part is not knowing the future," he said.
State budget cuts and fluctuations in enrollment can leave a school district in financial trouble quickly if it isn’t prudent in negotiations, he said.
All told, the total average salary in Marysville last year was $54,169, second highest in Snohomish County to $55,460 in Everett, according to state records. The statewide average was $49,297.
Those figures can be deceiving, teachers say. They include money for teachers who perform duties outside of the school day, such as for coaching sports and other extracurricular activities to teaching remedial programs after school and stipends for teaching summer school.
Union officials also point out that some districts report money spent on salaries for extracurricular activities differently than others to the superintendent of public instruction.
That can skew total salary comparisons from district to district.
How much of a difference that makes is hard to know, said spokeswoman Schmanke.
Some districts report more than is required, she said
Last year, teachers in the Marysville district averaged $7,445 in local money toward teacher salaries, fourth among local districts. Snohomish was the highest at $8,201, Monroe was second at $7,713 and Mukilteo third at $7,536, according to records maintained by the state superintendent’s office.
The state provides $481 a month in insurance benefits for each teacher who is paid a state salary. School districts often set up insurance pools in which they contribute additional money.
In Marysville, for instance, the district contributed $25 a month per employee to the pool last year. Depending on the coverage plan and family circumstance, teachers also face out-of-pocket expenses up to several hundred dollars a month. The coverage includes medical and dental, with a choice between a vision plan or life insurance, according to the Marysville contract.
Another part of the insurance equation is a retiree subsidy. Some districts pay the entire subsidy, some don’t pay anything and others split the cost, Jenft said. Marysville paid the subsidy, which was $36.36 per full-time teacher per month last year, under the recently expired contract.
Bob Ingraham, president of the Lake Stevens Education Association, which went on strike for two weeks earlier this month, said benefits were extremely important to his teachers.
"The top priority was health care," he said.
Teachers are paid for 182 days from the state. In most districts, that includes 180 days with students and two days of training.
In many districts, such as Marysville, teachers are also paid for additional work from local tax money. In Marysville last year, the contract called for teachers to be paid for two days and 56 hours on top of that.
Teachers are quick to point out that they put in far more hours than they are paid for under their contracts. A statewide Washington Education Association random sample survey from 2001 found the average teacher reported putting in an additional 14 hours a week during the school year.
Pay and benefits are only a part of the tangled ball that make up a teacher contract. Other areas covered in the contracts also cost money, from lowering caseloads for counselors to paying for extra training.
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
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