Cumberland County Association of Educators

Teachers will be receiving an average 7% salary increase in the budget. Starting teacher pay will be hiked to $33,000 from $30,080, and current teachers other than those on the last six steps will receive base salary raises in 2014-15.

 

These raises will be accompanied by two major changes to the way teachers are paid: (1) teachers will no longer receiveseparate longevity payments, which will instead be built into the higher base salaries on the salary schedule; and (2) the salary schedule will be collapsed from 37 steps to six steps. As had been agreed to early in the negotiating process, the salary increases will not be tied to tenure.

One thing to note is that instead of a step increase and an associated salary increase each year, teachers will be locked into the same base salary for five year periods as they gain more experience.

Salary bumps will occur at each sixth year step. Base salaries will be capped at $50,000 in year 25. Current teachers will be placed on the schedule according to the year of experience they will be at for 2014-15. So a teacher who was year 2 in 2013-14 will be year 3 in 2014-15, a teacher who was year 4 in 2013-14 will be year 5 in 2014-15 and so on.

Current teachers who are on the last six steps of the schedule (and are thus over the $50,000 cap)  will be grandfathered, keep their longevity, and receive a one-time $1,000 bonus. 

Under the conference budget, school districts will still receive funding from the State for TAs in grades 2 and 3 (the Senate had proposed eliminating this funding). Also, there will be approximately $24 million of the TA allotment that will be shifted to non-recurring dollars. This money will be available for 2014-15 but will disappear next year absent action by lawmakers.

Educational Support Professionals (ESP’s) and Central Office staff will receive a $500 salary increase and maintain their longevity payments.

According to several people involved in the negotiations, that “framework” involves laying out the amounts of money available in each budget area for  Education, Health and Human Services, government operations, etc.  The top-level budget spreadsheet that provides a snapshot of the $21 billion budget – has been agreed to, but many of the details are still up in the air.

 What about those details?  According to WRAL-TV. the $21 billion spending plan includes a 7% raise.  Is that an average raise? What about teacher assistants and other ESP’s?

How the pay raise will be funded is a question still to be answered, since the salary schedule has not been released.  NCAE supports a sustainable, long-term commitment to raising teacher salaries to at least the national average. Longevity is a separately earned benefit and should not be used to help fund a pay raise. Further, teacher pay raises should not be funded by cutting other needed education programs and resources.