Teacher Pay Raises: A Comparative View

Joshua P. Starr (Credit/Wash. Examiner)

 

 

In my last visit to the Washington, D.C. area, I came across an article entitled “Pay raises proposed for Montgomery teachers” in the paper edition of Gazette.Net, a Maryland community newspaper which covers Montgomery County.

Unlike New Jersey, Maryland schools do not have local school boards as we do in The Garden State.  Instead, the fiscal and educational management of schools in the Old Line State is consolidated at the county level, including, naturally, the school budget.

In that regard, Joshua P. Starr, Superintendent of Montgomery County, MD Schools recently proposed a pay increase of 0.61 percent, or an $8.6 million increase to the current “$1.4 billion budgeted for salaries and wages, excluding other compensation.” 


That $1.4 billion equates to 66% of the total “$2.13 billion budget proposed by Montgomery’s schools superintendent,” with the $8.6 million pay hike to be shared among “teachers, support staff and administrators.”  Additionally, it is scheduled to be built into the salary guide as “a combination of annual ‘step increases’ or longevity raises.”

This nominal pay increase is viewed by the Montgomery County, MD Superintendent of Schools as a way to keep the per-pupil cost steady.

At the moment, the Bridgewater-Raritan School District is locked in mediation with its largest bargaining unit, the Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association.  

The outcome of that mediation could have a significant impact upon the current, as well as next year’s School Budget which has not yet been presented to the community but, I hope, soon will be in its entirety.

The very high number of school districts and schools boards in New Jersey makes for an expensive, redundant system of overhead costs and dilutes the bargaining power of individual school districts which simply cannot match the clout of the state-wide teachers’ union, the NJEA.

Thanks for your reading time.