Columbia Public Schools released a video Tuesday, March 31, 2015 detailing what Deputy Superintendent Dana Clippard calls its best and final offer in response to the teacher’s union’s request for changes to the current teacher compensation contract.
“The request for a 6.6 million dollar compensation package comes at a time when the district is growing and must begin planned spending of its savings,” Clippard said.
Clippard said the district was not able to unfreeze the pay from the 2008-2009 school year, one of the union’s biggest priorities. Doing so would add $4.4 million to the budget. She said it was unclear if that would be possible in the future.
“It really depends on what is the growth of our district and what is the revenue available,” Clippard said. “Then what is the priority of the teachers in future years and how does that align with the priority of the board.”
Susan McClintic, President of the Columbia Missouri National Education Association, said Tuesday’s $2.2 million dollar offer from the district does little to correct a policy that allows new teachers to be hired at higher pay rate than current teachers with the same experience.
“It causes moral issues between people who are working the same job and being paid at different amounts,” McClintic said. “That may be a very traditional business practice, but it is not a practice in public schools.”
The district offered a 1.6% increase in pay for experience compared to the 5% requested by the union. This increase would only apply to teachers that would move forward on the pay schedule.
Clippard said the board would continue to cover the same cost of health, dental and life insurance for teachers.
The teacher’s bargaining committee can either accept or reject the district’s offer and present its own counter proposal. The teacher’s union met Tuesday night at a bargaining session to discuss the district’s proposal.
