Teacher salaries across Utah have been increasing as districts compete with each other to recruit new talent and retain experienced teachers. Newly Certified teachers and veterans with years of proven classroom experience are in demand and supply is short. That has created a situation where smaller districts such as Carbon find themselves pitted against urban centers.
The Carbon School District is now offering a package of financial incentives for teachers at all levels of experience. “We had a couple of goals,” said Carbon District Business Administrator Darin Lancaster”The first was to increase the starting salaries. The changes in the Wasatch Front districts and their plans to increase salaries is what brought on this discussion. We also wanted the salaries for long-term teachers to be increased. We developed a schedule that has a higher starting salary and provides steady increases throughout a teacher’s career.”
The schedule has been changed so that instead of multiple lanes, there is only one lane with multiple steps over a teacher’s career, and the amount of money a teacher gets year to year becomes greater over the length of their career with the district. In the past, teachers reached a plateau and staying there.
“In the old schedule, in years 1-10 there were steep salary increases,” said Lancaster. “And then after that it plateaued for a number of years. There were three steps added to the schedule that gave long-term teachers a little bump at their 11th, 17th and 25th years. Essentially, under the old schedule, once a teacher passed that 10-year mark they didn’t get much of a raise.”
Under the old schedule the money was mostly invested in the first 10 years a teacher was with the district.
“If you took someone under the old schedule with a 30-year career in Carbon School District, the raises they receives over their first ten years would average about $1,500 per year. However, over the next 20 years, their raises averaged about $150 per year.”
“With this new schedule the district will be paying essentially the same amount for a 30 year career teacher as it did under the old schedule,” said Lancaster. “It doesn’t cost the district any more, but just spreads it out differently.”
Starting salaries for teachers will now be around $40,000 per year. Then every year there is an increase of $500 per year. Cost of living adjustments will go on top of what the original schedule dictates, with the entire schedule shifting to meet those changes. Regardless, the $500 per year bump will remain the same.
With this change there are a few teachers, based on their years of service, who would see a pay decrease with the new schedule. But Lancaster said the district has an answer for that.
“If a teacher is currently on step 10 in terms of longevity, that same salary amount would be step 16 on the new schedule, in the transition process we will move them to that higher step on the new schedule so that their salary amount is at least the same as what they had been receiving,” he stated.
With the new schedule the early year teachers, which the district has a lot of at the present time, would have received a huge raise in the first year. This would have been prohibitive, so there were four transitional steps that take those teachers half the distance to their step this year, and next year they will be moved the rest of the distance.
“After this coming year everyone will be on the new schedule,” said Lancaster. “Hopefully, these changes will aid in recruitment of teachers to the district and longer term teachers will enjoy the new increases.”
There will still be a incentives for degrees and college hours that teachers obtain as they work in the district. Teachers who gain further education jump steps to serve as an increase for their efforts. For instance, a teacher that gets a masters degree will rise five steps to reward them for their educational attainment.
The Educator Salary Adjustment that was approved by the legislature a few years ago still holds true. That amount is $4200, and it comes as a direct line item from the legislature. That is given to career teachers who are judged to be effective in the classroom. At one time that money was presented separate from the salary schedule, but now it is part of it.
“We have made it clear that if they do not receive an effective grade, that money will be deducted from their salary,” said Lancaster.
The schedule also allows for experience that a new teacher to Carbon might have gained by working elsewhere. If they have, for instance, six years of prior teaching experience, they will be placed on step six.
Another advantage of this schedule for long term teachers is that at the end of their career their last years of earnings will be higher than they were under the old system. State pensions and social security payments are based on the last years of earnings, so they will get more money from those payments as well.
The Carbon County Education Association membership approved the new schedule with 98.3 percent voting yes when they cast their ballots in late June.
“This change will help the district with their teacher recruiting efforts,” said CCEA President Chris Sweeney. “It is a fiscally conservative plan and allows everyone to build for the future.”
Outgoing CCEA President Paulie Vogenic said that sometimes it is easy to be short-sighted about what is presented from negotiations, but that in this case a vast majority of instructors thought the change was positive.
New salary schedule for Carbon District teachers
Misty Matthews, a teacher at Creekview Elementary, works with students during a hands-on science learning exercise. She, along with other teachers at Carbon School District, are on a salary schedule that helps teachers at all levels.