Jeffco school board approves teacher pay raises

LAKEWOOD – Jeffco schoolteachers won a pay raise and a one-time “stipend” bonus this week, but a potential second 1 percent increase could become a one-time payment, depending on whether the state calls back $11 million.

Teachers and other district employees can bank on a 1 percent pay raise and a matching pre-holiday payment after Jeffco’s school board this week agreed to the contract increases negotiated earlier this summer by district officials and the Jefferson County Education Association. The other 1 percent will be either a pay raise or a one-time payment.

The agreement, which is retroactive to Sept. 1, runs through Aug. 31, 2011 also includes a new “adoptive parent/new father leave” provision allowing teachers to take up to two weeks of sick leave after the birth or adoption of a child.

The teachers’ pay raises could cost taxpayers more than $16 million, according to Dr. Cindy Stevenson, Jeffco’s Superintendent of Schools.

“It’s about $5 million for (each) 1 percent,” plus the costs of the district’s “steps and levels” pay formula and the required increase in the district’s retirement fund contribution, Stevenson said. 

One-time payments do not figure in the base for future pay increases.

“We are able, since we have been frugal and thrifty, to move about $6 million forward that would have gone into reserve into the one-time compensation payment,” Stevenson said. The savings resulted from a 1 percent budget surplus. The district’s reserve fund is equivalent to 26 percent of the annual budget, Stevenson said, so the surplus was available for the stipend.

The state is considering calling back $110 million distributed to school districts. If the state can find no cure for its ailing revenue, that could cost Jeffco schools could lose $11 million, turning the second 1 percent increased into a one-time payment.

The plan was approved as part of the school board’s consent agenda Thursday night.  

The pay plan was negotiated as the district continues to grapple with the budgetary fallout from voter rejection of a tax increase last year.

The district is in discussions with citizens on how to best maximize the use of district schools and facilities. The public meetings will build on the work of the district’s Facilities Usage Committee, which has been meeting since early summer.

The discussions could result in consolidation of some schools and closure of others.

The Jeffco pay increase comes as other districts also try to hold down costs while retaining quality in their schools.

Denver teachers Friday ended voting on a proposed reduction in their expected pay increase. The Denver Classroom Teachers Association last year negotiated a three-year contract that included a pay increase linked to inflation.

That cost-of-living adjustment was pegged at the rate of inflation plus a quarter of a percentage point. That would have raised pay more than 4 percent, but a rapidly declining economic picture resulted in a renegotiated pact that, if teachers approve, would cut the raise to about 2.5 percent.

Teachers in a number of metro-area districts are working under expired contracts.

Stevenson said the outlook is less than rosy for Colorado school districts because of state budget woes and the end of a couple of voter approved funding sources.  And schools could lose as much as $140 million through additional school finance cuts next year

“So much of the difficulty is because of ambiguity right now,” Stevenson said.