We value public education. We choose to volunteer our time to serve on the School Committee because we deeply value public education. We are proud of our schools and the many dedicated and hardworking staff that serve the students in our community — bus drivers, custodians, food service workers, paraeducators, teachers, clerical staff, and administrative leaders. The fact that we can’t pay our staff all that they’re asking for is not a reflection of how we value public education or educators.
We are working hard to ensure we fairly compensate our staff within very real budget constraints. Our towns may increase property taxes in any year by a maximum of 2.5%. For the four towns in our region, that’s a combined average annual increase of $2.5 million, for all town services, such as libraries, conservation, recreation, senior services, snow plowing, public safety, as well as schools.
Our school budgets this year include over $32 million for salaries for members of the Amherst Pelham Education Association (APEA), the teachers, paraeducators, and clerical staff in our three school districts. That equates to about 50% of our total budgets. Employee benefits such as health insurance and retirement are another 20% of our total budgets. The compensation packages we offer are competitive and among the strongest in our area, with opportunities for career advancement, such as for paras to become teachers or for teachers to become administrators.
As we work through mediation with the APEA on a new contract, we agree that transparency is important. Our last offer, presented on Nov. 22, was for a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) of 2.5% in Year 1 of the contract, 2.5% in Year 2, and 2.0% in Year 3. We also propose increasing the starting pay for paraeducators from $17.13 to $17.80 per hour; with the 2.5% COLA, the starting pay for paras this year will be $18.25. This increase totals $846,500 for the current year, which is $34,000 above what is budgeted. This is in addition to increases that staff get each year in recognition of seniority, and that average around 4%. In total, our proposal offers an average increase in pay for APEA members of more than 6%.
Thanks to the help of the state-appointed mediator, the APEA’s most recent proposal of Oct. 12 was a significant movement from their earlier proposals. For teachers and clerical staff, the APEA proposal included a 3.25% COLA for this year. For paras, their proposal includes a baseline wage increase of 9%. It also includes the introduction of different compensation “lanes,” with higher wages for those with education credits or degrees beyond high school. The total cost of the most recent APEA proposal is $2 million for the current year, or more than $1.2 million over what is budgeted. The addition of compensation lanes for paras adds even more to that total cost, and would be even further above what is budgeted.
A comparison of the compensation-related contract proposals and total costs and a comparison of wages and salaries are available online: https://rebrand.ly/APEAproposal and https://rebrand.ly/APEAcomp.
Our groups have several areas of agreement, such as on some changes to compensation frameworks for paras and clerical staff as well as some non-compensation related items. While we haven’t yet come to agreement on all of the specifics, we are close to resolution on many of them.
We’re looking forward to our next mediation session on Nov. 30 and continuing to build on the tentative agreements to reach a fair and affordable contract.
Allison McDonald, on behalf of the Negotiation Subcommittee of the Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committee.