School board will consider salary cuts

Administrators, principals, assistant principals, supervisors and directors will take salary cuts in 2009-10 if the Burke County Board of Education approves a recommended budget option tonight.
The amounts range from 2.25 to 6.1 percent of the highest-paid school employees' salaries. The pay cuts are part of a systemwide effort to save people's jobs in the schools.
The meeting starts at 6 p.m. in the Staff Development Center, 509 W. Concord St.
Burke County Public Schools, like every N.C. school district, has heard a stream of increasingly dire reports from Raleigh about the General Assembly's plans to cut the state's financial support for public education.
As the schools' "worst worst-case scenario" became more likely, the district polled its certified staff — the people with teaching certificates — about their preference among five cost-cutting options.
Two-thirds of the Burke County educators supported a 50 percent cut in their local supplemental salaries to keep more teachers in the classrooms. The local supplement comes from funds appropriated by the county. In most cases it amounts to 4.5 percent of a teacher's state-paid salary, so a 2.25 percent pay cut for an average teacher earning $41,400 on a 10-month contract will be $931.50.
Administrators receive local supplements, too, but percentages vary. Supervisors and directors receive a local supplement equal to 5.5 percent of their base salary and principals and assistant principals receive 4.5 to 5.5 percent (except for the four high school principals, whose salaries are structured differently). Only Superintendent David Burleson does not receive a local supplement.
All of those administrators agreed to forego half of their local supplemental salaries next year, Burleson said. For the principals and assistant principals that totals slightly more than $90,000 — enough to preserve two teachers' jobs.
The superintendent himself promised he would take a salary cut 0.1 percent more than any other employee. The classified staff is facing 6 percent cuts; 6.1 percent of Burleson's $128,000 base salary would exceed $7,800.
The classified staff makes up half of the district's 2,000 employees. Burleson said there wasn't time to set up a similar poll for the custodians and maintenance workers, office staff, nurses, etc. Department heads and directors decided the best way to share the financial burden was to reduce those employees' work week by about 6 percent, from 40 hours to 37.5.
Under the plan, a maintenance worker earning $32,700 annually will lose about $39 per week; an office staffer at $28,000, $35.90 per week; and a custodian at $23,000, $27.65 per week.
Teacher's assistants' work week already is 37.5 hours. It will drop to 35.25 hours. A TA earning $20,300 on a 10-month contract will lose about $28.12 per week.
In all of those examples, the classified staff loses more money than a teacher.
Finance Officer Keith Lawson said the classified staff will work 130 fewer hours annually — the equivalent of more than three weeks.
The teachers won't work fewer hours. Lawson expects they actually will work more, especially in the lower grades. He expects the legislature will eliminate many TA jobs — including possibly all in third grade — so teachers must pick up those duties.
In addition, Lawson said, state-mandated budget cuts are adding to teachers' class loads. In 2007-08's elementary grades, the average class was 15 students per teacher. In 2008-09 it edged up to 18 per teacher. Next year, the "worst worst-case scenario" anticipates 21 students per teacher in kindergarten through third grade — a 40 percent increase in only two years.
Whether that scenario becomes reality remains to be seen. The legislature today will work on hammering out the final budget in a conference committee. Gov. Beverly Perdue last week asked legislators to raise more taxes and fees to mitigate the financial damage to schools. Even before the Employment Security Commission reported an 11.1 percent unemployment rate in May, many House and Senate members felt they couldn't lay more financial burdens on cash-strapped taxpayers.
Leaders in the General Assembly hope to have the budget finalized by July 1.
Burleson on Monday didn't sound optimistic about their meeting that deadline, but he hopes the legislators act sooner rather than later. Because of uncertainty about the budget, the schools haven't filled many vacant positions. The final budget could have districts all across North Carolina scrambling either to hire or lay off people, he said.
If the Burke County Board of Education tonight approves the administration's recommended budget adjustments, Burleson said the salary and work-week reductions will go into effect July 1. If the legislature produces a budget that allows the schools more money, Burleson said the cuts will be relaxed later in the year.