Litchfield School Board unanimously approved a new contract with Litchfield Education Association Sept. 13 that will raise teachers’ pay by 6.9 percent over the next two years.
The contract calls for a 3.8 percent increase in the first year and a 3.05 increase in the second year.
“I want to thank the negotiating group from LEA,” board member Julie Rae Pennertz said. “It was a very polite and mutual conversation throughout the whole thing. Teamwork from both sides.”
Those comments were in reference to what sometimes can become a contentious negotiation between school district representatives looking to control expenses and union representatives seeking pay increases. But the contention didn’t materialize this year.
Board chairman Darrin Anderson said the board’s negotiators and LEA representatives “got it done quick and no blood drawn.”
In addition to the annual increases, the contract calls for adding two steps in the salary schedule, in an addition to a $500 increase in teachers’ 403b retirement plan in the first year of the contract. The second year sees no retirement plan increase.
Meanwhile the district’s lifetime match cap on 403b accounts was raised from $35,000 to $40,000.
Wages discussed
The teacher contract approval was one of a couple of discussions the school board had regarding human resources and staff pay. Others included pay for a Community Education staff and for paraprofessional substitutes.
Superintendent Beckie Simenson told the board she was somewhat surprised to find “no rhyme or reason” to the pay rate for people working in the Dragons Kids Club program. The after-school and summer vacation program has seen significant turnover in staff, and in replacing people it the district “need(s) to have some consistency” in wages that could be created through implementation of a pay grid, she said.
In addition, Simenson recommended a pay increase for Janaye Prieve, a program coordinator at Community Education, in recognition of the duties she has taken on in coordinating the Dragons Kids Club scheduler. The district had a coordinator who handled staffing schedules last year, but that position no longer exists, and Prieve has stepped into the role, which Simenson said she believes warrants a $2 per hour increase – the amount that was saved by not having a coordinator.
Substitute pay
Simenson also presented for review pay rates for substitute teachers and paraprofessionals, which she asked the board to possibly act on at its next meeting.
The district did not have a long-term paraprofessional substitute in each of three buildings – Lake Ripley Elementary, middle and high schools — at the start of this school year, which it did last year, Simenson said. That, combined with difficulty finding para substitutes, meant two positions were left unfilled in the days leading up to the day of the board meeting.
Some of the reason for the shortage of paraprofessional substitutes, Simenson said, could be the pay rate. The last time the board reviewed the rate was September 2017, she said, and at that time, it was decided to maintain the rate that had been set in 2015 for substitutes in all staffing areas, including paras, clerical, food service and custodial.
Paras, or teacher assistants, currently are paid $12.27 per hour. Clerical positions receive $15.06, food service $12.92 and custodial $13.72.
Litchfield’s hourly wage for paraprofessional substitutes stands among the lowest in a survey of eight other districts in the area of similar size, Simenson said, with only Kimball ($11.50 per hour) and Dassel-Cokato ($12 per hour) paying less. Eden Valley-Watkins had the top substitute para pay among the eight schools at $14.61 per hour.
Litchfield’s substitute teacher pay is $100 per day, increasing to $110 per day on the 21st day of substituting for various teachers, or the 11th day for the same teacher.
A statewide survey of 198 responding school districts found the average daily pay for substitute teachers during the 2021-2022 school year is $136.35.
“We have to do better with what we are paying,” board member Greg Mathews, a former teacher in the Litchfield School District, said. “I think we’ve got to be better than the area average. I would like to attract some really good people to come in as substitutes, as teachers and paras.”
Board member Michelle Falling, a human resources business partner at Doosan Bobcat in Litchfield, said her employer has seen “a huge increase in wages” as it seeks to fill open positions.
“I look at these (substitute) wages and say, you can go to McDonald’s for $15 an hour,” Falling said. “When you pay people well, it helps with retention, quality of people … we have happy students and we have happy parents and that means a lot.”
