Teachers accept pay cut

COEUR d'ALENE - All salaries in the Coeur d'Alene School District will be lower next year.

The school board and the Coeur d'Alene Education Association approved a contract Monday that will lower salaries by 3.2 percent by furloughing six days from the 190-day contract.

The loss of six paid work days will be felt by administrators, staff and teachers alike.

"While I'm pleased that we have reached an agreement, it is with the heaviest heart that we ratify this agreement as our teachers and staff deserve far better than what we have been able to provide them," said Superintendent Hazel Bauman.

The district opened contract negotiations April 20 with the CEA, the local negotiating group for teachers and staff.

Like other districts, Coeur d'Alene is operating under a statewide financial emergency declared by the Legislature earlier this year when they slashed $128 million from the state education budget.

The move enables districts to negotiate salary freezes and reductions in pay or benefits within teachers' contracts, something Idaho law does not allow without declaration of a financial emergency.

Pam Pratt, the district's representative at the bargaining table, said negotiations went smoothly.

"It's not so happy for us. Really, it's kind of sad," Pratt said. "It's the first time any of us can remember, and I've been doing this for 40 years. We've never, ever decreased salaries."

Salaries and benefits make up 89 percent of the Coeur d'Alene School District's general fund.

The six furloughed days will reduce the district's $4.8 million budget shortfall for the next school year by $1.2 million.

The furlough days mandated for all employees include one holiday, one work day scheduled without instructional time, and four instructional days.

One of the instructional days will be made up by reducing parent teacher conferences scheduled in March from two days to one.

Students will not have to make up the three remaining days, Bauman said, because the district's calendar is above the state minimum requirement for instructional days.

It's unlikely the board will approve the loss of those days for another year, Bauman said.

The approved contract provides half of an experience advancement salary increase the state salary schedule allows mainly for newer teachers.

Last year, 50 percent of the district's staff qualified for that increase and received half of it. They will receive the other half this year, about a $700 pay increase.

Employees who insure family members will see the cost of their health insurance go up next year by about 15 percent, an increase from the health carrier that will not be borne by the district.

To make up the additional $4.8 million needed to balance next year's budget, the district will withdraw about $2 million from its $3 million fund balance.

The remaining $1.6 million will come from reductions in administrative and classified positions through attrition and reassignment, cuts in maintenance spending and also reduced spending for transportation for field trips and activities.

By paring funding for some of its School Resource Officers, the district will see additional savings.

Through a partnership with the Coeur d'Alene Police Department, there is now a police officer assigned to each of the district's three middle schools, and its three high school buildings. Currently, the district pays three of the six officers' salaries and the police department pays the balance.

Beginning next year, the district will stop funding the three SRO positions, but the city's law enforcement agency has decided to step up and fund two of them for next year.

Officers will remain at the three high schools and two of the middle schools. Canfield Middle School is the only school that will lose its SRO next year.

"We all agreed this program was so valuable that we want to keep as many officers in the schools as we can," said Police Chief Wayne Longo.

Canfield regularly has the lowest number of incidents - arrests for drugs, alcohol, weapons and other calls for service - per semester.

The city's police department will absorb the loss of the district's funding by not filling one of two openings for regular patrol officers, Longo said.

The trust built with the children through continuity makes it worthwhile for the police department to try and keep officers' assigned to the schools, Longo said.

Without SROs, regular patrol officers would respond to calls from the schools.

"We looked at the statistics, and the problems don't go away," Longo said.