This document has been formatted for printing from your browser from the Web site of the Illinois Association of School Boards.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE --This document is © copyrighted by the Illinois Association of School Boards. IASB hereby grants to school districts and other Internet users the right to download, print and reproduce this document provided that (a) the Illinois Association of School Boards is noted as publisher and copyright holder of the document and (b) any reproductions of this document are disseminated without charge and not used for any commercial purpose.

Illinois School Board Journal
May/June 2007

by Joseph Matula

Joseph Matula is an assistant professor of educational administration at Governor's State University and a former school superintendent in Illinois.

One of the most significant issues facing school board members during the bargaining process with teachers is the ever-present and often confusing salary schedule. If board members are to agree to something that can have both an instructional and financial impact on the district, they need to understand some of the variables that can occur within the schedule.

Salary schedules are usually talked about in terms of "lanes" and "steps." "Lanes" in a schedule correlate to different salary columns based on the education a teacher has (bachelor's degree, master's degree or a degree plus the number of hours above such a degree). "Steps" correlate to the amount of time a teacher has been with the district.

After surveying 204 school districts and special education cooperatives in Illinois, I came up with a 10-point explanation of terms and comparisons to help board members when considering their teacher salary schedules.

Step increases are the differences between any two consecutive salaries in the same column, or "lane." The difference may be a percentage or it may be a certain number of dollars. For example: Step 1 is $34,000; Step 2 is $35,000.

The step increase in this instance is $1,000 ($35,000 minus $34,000). If expressed as a percentage, the $1,000 difference is almost 3 percent (1,000 divided by 34,000). These step increases represent how much the school district values experience or at least how much the bargaining unit was able to negotiate in higher salaries. The larger the step increase, the faster teachers will gain higher salaries — one of the goals of every bargaining unit.

The number of steps in each lane determines how quickly a teacher reaches the maximum salary in the respective lane. Reaching the maximum step is closely related to longevity pay, which will be discussed later.

Establishing a limited number of steps in each lane forces a teacher to gain increased training to move horizontally to the next lane. Some school districts have as many as 40 steps in certain lanes, while some have as few as seven steps in a lane.

Most typically, school districts have the fewest number of steps in the lower lanes, bachelor's degree lane or bachelor's degree lane plus additional hours. In effect, the district is saying: "Your salary will be frozen sooner in the bachelor's degree lanes, but once you get some training beyond your bachelor's degree, more steps will be added."

The difference between any two lanes represents the number of hours needed to earn a higher salary and thus be rewarded for taking further training. These differentials can provide an incentive for teachers to take training beyond the minimum needed for the required certificate.

Further training most often requires prior approval of a supervising administrator. This approval could be from the superintendent or another central office administrator. Typically, the teachers' contract contains the procedures needed for approval or the criteria that must be met to take the training. A tuition reimbursement program may also encourage teachers to engage in career-long learning.

These lane differentials can vary from district to district and demonstrate just how much of an incentive the district wants to create. Most often, the size of the differential between any two lanes represents how important the district values continued training since the hours rewarded typically need to be earned after the date of hire.

Of those Illinois districts surveyed, the average differences in dollars between bachelor's degree lanes and master's degree lanes were: elementary districts — $3,974; high school districts — $3,761; unit districts — $3,394; cooperatives — $3,884

This area of salary schedules was fairly consistent among the sampled school districts. Most districts had one or two lanes between the bachelor's degree lanes and master's degree lanes, and the same number after the master's degree lane.

The number of lanes can represent how much a school district wants to motivate the teachers to engage in continued training. For example, if a teacher sees a lane between the bachelor's degree lane and the master's degree lane, it becomes an intermediate step to encourage additional training. On the other hand, a district may offer an incentive by having no intermediate lanes before a master's degree lane, but offer a significant raise upon getting the master's degree. If nothing else, it saves the business office the paperwork of having to process transcripts and the salary changes.

Tuition reimbursement may also provide an incentive, but those benefits were beyond the scope of this survey.

This survey showed the average number of lanes in salary schedules is seven, with three in the bachelor's degree lanes and four in the master's degree lanes.

Hand-in-hand with the number of lanes in a salary schedule is the number of hours needed to move from one lane to the next. Some schedules provide raises after only eight hours rather than after 12 or 15 hours, as many others do.

This can encourage a teacher to take additional hours of training as soon as possible. It was impractical to average these hours for the survey results, because some districts have unequal increases such as one lane with eight additional hours and the next lane with 15 additional hours.

The concept of equity, as applied to school finance, is the fair distribution of resources. This same definition of equity can apply to the salaries on a teachers' salary schedule. In other words, the school district has resources (money) to distribute to its teachers. With salaries approximately 70 percent of a district's budget, an analysis is needed of how the salary funds are distributed.

So how should available resources be distributed among teachers? How much more should one teacher make than another? Given that two teachers may teach side-by-side with the same work assignment, how much more should a 10-year teacher with a master's degree earn than the least-experienced teacher with no additional training?

Although it may be true that experience and training lead to a more effective teacher, the expectations for those two teachers are the same. Both are teaching the same curriculum. Regardless of the teacher and certainly regardless of the teacher's salary, parents expect that their child will get an excellent education. Parents are not going to say to the principal: "Put my child in the room of the highest-paid teacher."

It is accepted practice that teachers are paid off a schedule, so two teachers with different years of experience and different levels of training will be paid differently. What should that difference be?

A comparison of two salaries by division can generate an index of equity to compare the equity of one school district with another. To make a valid comparison, indexes established in different school districts must be based on the same salary cells. Reviewing the 204 salary schedules from this survey, step 10 in the master's degree lane became that salary cell.

This is the highest salary that all school districts have in common. Therefore, dividing the salary in the master's degree lane step 10 by the starting salary or bachelor's degree lane step one, gives an index called the "middle equity index."

The middle equity index for a school district with a starting salary of $35,000 and a master's degree lane step of $45,000, is 45,000 divided by 35,000 or 1.3.

Compare that with a school district having the same starting salary but with a master's degree lane step 10 salary of $50,000. The second district would have a middle equity index of 50,000 divided by $35,000 or 1.4. This means there is a greater disparity of salaries in the second district.

This survey revealed that the average middle equity index for elementary schools is 1.4; for high school districts, 1.5; for unit districts, 1.4; and for cooperatives, 1.5.

The higher the number is, the greater the disparity and the less equitable the schedule. The smaller the number is, the smaller the disparity and the more equitable the schedule. Interestingly enough, elementary districts surveyed had both the greatest disparity (1.84) and the smallest disparity (1.11).

The concept of this index is the same as the previous index with one significant drawback. Since school districts throughout Illinois have a variety of lanes, hours and steps, the maximum equity index is similar to comparing apples and oranges. For example, a comparison in one district may be between a master's degree plus 30 hours lane step 20 and a starting salary, and in another district it may be a comparison between a master's degree plus 45 hours lane step 25 and a starting salary.

However this comparison can still be of value knowing that the comparison is at least between the lowest paid teacher in the district and the highest paid teacher in the district.

Given that the two teachers have the same work assignment, how much more should a 25-year teacher with a master's degree plus 45 hours earn than the least experienced teacher with no additional training?

This survey revealed that the average maximum equity index for elementary schools is 2.2; for high school districts, 2.3; for unit districts, 2.0; and for cooperatives, 2.2.

As with the middle equity index, the higher the number is, the greater the disparity and the less equitable the schedule is. And, again, elementary districts surveyed had both the greatest disparity (3.03) and the smallest disparity (1.34) in their maximum equity indexes.

Frequently, salary schedules include a numerical value listed beside the salary amounts. Or the numerical values may be listed on a separate sheet that accompanies the schedule. These values are represented by a whole number and a decimal, such as 1.3. This is an indexed salary schedule with the numerical values representing how the particular salary cells were calculated.

Typically, the salary amounts are indexed or multiplied times the base. The base is usually the bachelor's degree step one salary. This may not seem like a big deal, since most salary schedules have some type of index that determines each salary amount. The only difference is the indexes are not visible. So what is the difference?

It can be huge if the school board wants to restructure the salary schedule. In the case of an indexed schedule, the board would have another issue to bargain — the index.

For example, if the school board wanted to give a bigger percentage or adjusted raises to teachers at the lower end rather than at the higher end of the schedule in order to raise the starting salary, the board would have to bargain restructuring the index. This can present another hurdle to bargaining.

If the bargaining team is made up of veteran teachers, the response may be, "Why the change? We paid our dues by earning those lower salaries. Let the new people do the same." But the board needs to attract quality candidates and may need the change.

An indexed salary schedule results in a loss of local control. Bargaining becomes harder when a change to the structure of the schedule is desired. If there is no change, then the base is raised by a certain percentage. That's easy, but the board has to be careful that any mention of a raise must include the step increase, too.

With an indexed schedule, the teachers have more reason to refer to their smaller percentage increase as their raise, totally overlooking the step increase.

One of the decisions a school board eventually has to deal with is what to do with teachers who reach the maximum salary amount in their respective lanes. In other words, what raises do teachers who are frozen on the last step in the lane receive?

Some districts just keep adding steps and have as many as 40 steps. Most districts seem to create a salary adjustment called "longevity pay." This can be a lesser percentage of the prior step, a smaller percentage raise than what the other teachers get, or a flat dollar amount added to the salary reflecting years of service. A longevity salary would be whatever the final cell on the schedule is plus $1,500, for example.

Longevity adjustments can be very confusing. That's why the survey results used here avoided all steps that seemed to be longevity steps. Sometimes these salary amounts were explicitly labeled or sometimes they were labeled L1, L2, L3, etc. Many district have a short narrative following the schedule, explaining the longevity rules. To be certain one applied the district's longevity policy accurately would need an interpretation of the superintendent, business manager or human relations director.

Here are a few actual wordings from some sample schedules:

"Persons on the last step of all MA salary lanes will be granted a longevity increase of $1,700 for each year of the agreement."

Longevity: "For teacher at the 21st step, add $2,977."

Longevity: "$500 for 21 to 25 years of service; $800 for 26+ years of service."

"Employees repeating Lane 6 on Step Longevity 4 will receive an $850 stipend in addition to the Longevity 4 Lane 6 salary amount."

Frequently, when teachers unions and school boards settle their contracts, articles appear in the newspaper reading: "Teachers Get 5% Raise!" Some teachers say, "I didn't get a 5 percent raise." Those who get more than 5 percent don't say anything.

This discrepancy happens for different reasons. It can be due to the way the contract settlement was explained to the reporter. The reporter then tries to simplify the topic and a copy editor picks up on a figure for the headline. Or it can just be due to the way the whole contract settlement, including insurance benefits, was summarized or costed out.

The key decision in understanding the term "raise" is whether to include the step increase as part of the raise. This becomes critical when the school district is bargaining because of the position taken by the teachers union.

The district's position during bargaining is to determine how much more the new salary schedule will cost. The district must consider the step increase as part of the teachers' raise. The teachers will consider the step increase as an annual adjustment recognizing their increased experience. Regardless of which position one may agree with, the step increase is money the teacher didn't receive the prior year.

The two parties do not need to agree on the use of that term. Each can use their own definitions. The way to do this is for the school district to exchange actual schedules, whether created by the district or created by the teachers. It doesn't need to be labeled, but just created and referred to as, "Here is schedule X."

The teachers will respond with their schedule and say, "Here is our schedule raising the base by a certain percent." The district will then need to take their numbers, plug them in to the district's scattergram and either reject it or accept it. It doesn't need to be labeled or called anything special as long as the document with the new salaries is agreed to. The school board representatives will report to the press a number with the step increases included. The teachers' bargaining representatives may report to their union members the percent without the step increase. It may be confusing to the public, but each side can give their own explanation when asked.

The board's position is the one most understood by the public. They know that if you received $40,000 last year and you will receive $42,000 this year, you will receive $2,000 in new money or a 5 percent raise.