Teachers and school district agree on 15.2 percent salary increase

Teachers in the Grand Coulee Dam School District will get a 15.2-percent across-the-board increase in salary this year, following an agreement reached between the local teachers union and the district that some have called “life changing.”

Superintendent Paul Turner told the school board Monday night that the increase is covered by the new salary allocation coming from the state, but just barely, with the district getting about $2.6 million for teacher salaries.

He said the average of teacher salaries in the district is now at $65,614. The new range of salaries starts at about $42,000 for the newest teachers and tops out at about $80,000 for the district’s most experienced and educated teachers, he said.

The average Grand Coulee Dam teacher salary in the school year just past was $51,200, according to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The local teachers union ratified the new contract Aug. 31 with more than 90 percent voting in favor, Grand Coulee Dam Education Association President Carrie Derr said.

The substantial raise is “actually life changing for a lot of people,” Derr said of the long-awaited increase.

Over the past decade-plus, the state’s teachers have had their wages frozen in many years to help balance the state budget.

“With the rising cost of health care, teachers felt the loss,” Derr noted.

Then the state was sued over its lack of funding for basic education in a case that went to the state’s Supreme Court. The decision the court issued directed the Legislature to find a way to fund it. It took several more years before the “McCleary Fix” was in, and the dust hasn’t settled yet.

School board members expressed frustration with OSPI, the state agency through which state funds flow to school districts, because of the way the transition was handled to the new pay system, causing friction with teacher unions and even leading to strikes in the state.

Turner said legislators have been hearing from unhappy school districts.

He noted the new system will affect hiring policies in districts. At Grand Coulee Dam, the district will get a set amount of $65,000 per teacher, as opposed to the state paying the district for wherever their teachers fell on an experience/salary grid.

Now, hiring teachers on the upper end of experience will cost the district more, not the state.

“I’ve got to watch it,” Turner said. “I’ve got to make sure I counter that with some (less experienced) staff” when making hiring decisions.

Both Turner and Derr described the negotiations in the district as done in good faith, fair and cordial.

“We did feel like it was fair bargaining,” Derr said.

Turner said Tuesday that the district still has not come to an agreement with its classified employee union.