Greg Borcher

Powell school employees who qualify will once again receive salary increases. In a 6-1 vote, the Park County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees recently approved providing employee raises — referred to as steps and lanes — in the 2020-21 budget, which begins July 1. The increases will cost the district “just shy of $110,000,” said Superintendent Jay Curtis.

“Based on the numbers that we have, there is absolutely no reason why we can’t or shouldn’t do that,” Curtis said of the salary increases. “Things in the future might change and we might get into a position where that decision is a little bit tougher, but at this point, it’s a really easy decision.”

Curtis reiterated the importance of taking care of the district’s employees.

“The one thing that we do that promotes the best culture, that serves our kids the best, is we take care of our people,” Curtis said.

When more than 80% of the school district’s roughly $28 million budget goes toward paying employees, “you could say we are in the people business,” he said last month.

“And when you are in the people business, you are only as good as the people you employ,” the superintendent said. “You’re only as good as those you hire and you’re only as good as the ones that you retain.”

Trustee Don Hansen cast the lone dissenting vote last month, calling 2020 “quite the year for this whole state of Wyoming.”

“It’s not that our employees don’t deserve steps and [lanes] raises, but I just don’t feel this year is the year to do it,” Hansen said. “I feel we need to just kind of hold the reins a little bit.”

Not a ‘meaningful raise’

While employees have received more pay as they’ve advanced, Curtis does not consider step and lane increases “meaningful raises.”

“We have not had a meaningful raise for our employees since 2015,” he said. “And by meaningful raise, I would say we have not added to the base salary of any of our salary schedules.”

A “step” is given for every year of service (up to a certain limit), and amounts to an annual increase of $1,150 on the salary schedule. Employees receive a “lane” increase by advancing their education, such as getting a master’s degree. Lane increases are valued at $1,100 per year.

“I think an argument could be made that it’s semantics that we’re talking — that a raise is a raise is a raise. If you get more money one year than you did the last, that constitutes a raise,” Curtis said. “However, I view it philosophically very differently. I think steps and lanes are intended to keep pace close to inflation.”

Most public schools have used a steps-and-lanes system since the 1950s to address equity and objectivity, he said. The system allows for “predictable cost of living advancement,” Curtis said.

Even with step and lane increases in recent years, the superintendent said school employees’ salaries haven’t kept up with inflation in Wyoming.

Curtis gave the example of a teacher hired in 2010 who received step increases, but no lanes for additional education. Today, that teacher would be making $57,550 in Powell, and would have topped out on the salary schedule in 2018, with no additional steps.

“That same teacher, if they were following the cost of living, or inflation figures, would be making $58,232 this year,” Curtis said. “So they would be making $682 more per year under a COLA model than they do under our current steps and lanes model.”

The base salary and how the district compensates employees “is one of the greatest tools that we have to recruit great talent and keep them,” he said.

Curtis called effective teachers “the most important school-based determinant of students’ educational performance.”

Powell’s base salary for teachers is $48,350, and two districts within 20 miles are paying over $50,000 for their base, Curtis said. He called it a competition.

Sometimes residents make comments like, “There’s a lot of people in the private sector who don’t get raises, like teachers do.”

“I would argue that I’m not competing with the private sector for teachers,” Curtis said. “I’m actually competing with other schools, and not just other schools from nearby but other schools from other states.”

Of the district’s 367 employees, 68 have topped out on their salary schedule and “will receive the same paycheck next year that they did this year,” he said.

Among certified staff (such as teachers), 81% will get steps and/or lanes, while 82% of support staff will receive steps; there are no lanes for support staff, said Mary Jo Lewis, coordinator of business services. Only 15% of the administrators will advance on the salary schedule, she said.

Trustee Kimberly Condie thanked Curtis, Lewis and business office staff for their work and “helping us manage our money so carefully.”

Trustee Trace Paul said the board’s role is to fulfill the community’s expectations and goals.

“The expectation that I hear about is the desire to continue to have Park 1 be a leading district in the state,” he said.

Paul said it’s important to be competitive to bring in talented and professional staff who can provide a high-quality education to local kids.

“If that means that we’ve got to be competitive on the salary base, then I’m all for it,” Paul said. “And that’s one thing that we do to meet that expectation.”

​Superintendent Curtis noted that when school buildings closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic this spring, teachers had to transition everything online within a two-week period.

“And they did it and they did it with smiles on their faces,” he said. “They did it with good attitudes. And they did it with kids in mind.”

‘Not the year to do it’

Trustee Hansen said the board has approved step and lane increases every year since he joined in 2014; he voted in favor of past increases.

Lewis said the board has approved advancement on the salary schedule since she started with the district in 2001.

“...However we haven’t always given increases on the base, which is a true salary increase,” Lewis said.

Hansen referenced a white paper the board supported a few years ago “that said we needed to do cuts.”

“We’ve cut in other areas, but we’ve never cut any teachers’ wages or anything,” Hansen said.

The district gave “some really good bonuses last year … on top of the steps and lane raises,” he continued.

“The State of Wyoming does a fantastic job of funding our schools, our educators, that cannot be denied,” Hansen said. “It’s the only state that has a triple A rating. It’s the best in the nation.”

But at this point, he said he’s not in favor of step and lane increases.

“I feel we need to put it on hold for this year only,” Hansen said.

Northwest College employees have not received any raises for several years, he added.

Superintendent Curtis said Park 1 can’t control what’s going on with the college or their funding.

“I feel terrible for those people at the college,” he said. “The Constitution of Wyoming actually treats K-12 a little bit differently than secondary education at the college level.”

The superintendent said he didn’t think NWC’s budget should be part of the school board’s discussion.

“While my heart goes out to them, I don’t think we should punish our employees for what the college is not able to do,” Curtis said. “I don’t think that’s fair to them in any way, shape or form.”

Board Chairman Greg Borcher said giving step and lane increases is “within our budgeted allotment already.”

“We don’t raise taxes,” he said. “... We are given a block grant by the State of Wyoming to operate our school district to the best of our ability, and that’s basically what we’re doing — using the money as we see fit.”

The pay increases go a long way in helping with morale in the district, Borcher added, and keeping that mantra of “we’re one of the best districts in the state.”

“If we can keep this up, great,” Borcher said. “I know there will come times when we cannot absolutely give steps and lanes or give a stipend at the end of the year, and we probably will be facing that a year or two down the road. But right now the money was in the budget to do this.”

The school board will vote on the district’s 2020-21 budget at its July 15 meeting.

School employees awarded one-time performance stipends

This month, Powell school employees will receive one-time performance stipends that were approved a year ago.

For the 2019-20 budget — which goes through the end of June — the Park County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees approved performance-based stipends, subject to available funds at the end of the fiscal year.

Throughout the district, 349 employees qualified for the stipends, with the total cost at $674,223.

“We come to the end of the year and like last year, we have been extremely conscientious and very responsible with the way we have utilized our funding,” Superintendent Jay Curtis said in May.

In a 6-1 vote last month, the board approved the performance stipends and method for calculating the amounts; Trustee Don Hansen cast the dissenting vote.

“Employees will not receive the stipend if they do not have a positive performance evaluation or are on a plan of action,” wrote Mary Jo Lewis, coordinator of business services, in a memo to the board.

The amount each employee receives was calculated using teachers’ 185-day contract. Full-time teachers will receive $2,000, which equates to $10.81 per day or $1.35 an hour, Lewis said.

Using that figure, 12-month employees will receive $2,829, regardless of job classification (administrator or support staff).

For hourly support staff, the stipend is based on how many hours they work. For example, under a 175-day contract, a bus driver who works a five-hour daily route will receive $1,181, while a paraeducator working four hours a day will receive $945.

Coaching, extra duty and substitute hours were not included in the calculation, Lewis said.

The performance stipends in recent years are in lieu of any base increases, Curtis said.

“We did not move the base salary because our funding picture into the future has been very murky the last few years,” he said, adding that it’s been uncertain what the Legislature will do with funding.

Raising the base salary “means you’re committed to paying those salaries into perpetuity, which means that if cuts do come, the only tool that you have in your toolbox is to actually cut people.”

For two years in a row, Curtis said the district is ending the fiscal year “with money that we carefully set aside to take care of our people.”

“We would have that for use if something could or did come up throughout the school year,” he said. “That did not happen, so we have those funds available.”

The one-time stipends are slated to be paid out in the June 30 payroll.

The 2020-21 budget, which begins July 1, does not include performance-based stipends.