Concord Teachers Get Big Bonuses

Ten teachers within the will receive about $376,000 extra in their paychecks during the next two years as part of a program called the Veterans Salary Schedule, a longevity bonus, of sorts, awarded to teachers with many years in the system.

According to a memo from , the director of human resources, 28 teachers members applied for the bonus, out of 48 who were eligible for it. Each teacher will receive between $36,000 and $40,000 paid out during the next two school years, or about what a starting teacher, working full-time, at Bachelors 1, would earn.

The 10 teachers chosen to receive the bonuses have between 26 to 31.3 years of employment with the district, according to Prince. Teachers receiving the schedule include four teachers, a preschool speech-language pathologist, two elementary classroom teachers, an elementary special education teacher and physical education teacher.

History of the program

The Veterans Salary Schedule, originally a retirement stipend, was created in the early 1990s as an early retirement incentive, according to School Superintendent .

At the time, the district had a large majority of senior teachers who were at the latter stages of their careers, she said. Looking at it administratively, officials worried that the teachers might all retire at the same time. So they created a plan to keep them on, with a bonus.

Officials also realized that they needed to keep the older teachers on staff in order to help the younger teachers in their early, formative years, Rath said.

The other part of the program was all about economics, Rath said. After two years with the longevity bonus, the teachers would retire and be replaced with younger, less expensive teachers.

“The way it was funded, the assumption was, that when a teacher retired under this program, you’d replace them with a teacher very low on the salary schedule,” she said. “It was that differential – or a portion of that differential – that was meant to fund the retirement stipend.”

Rath said there was language in the older contracts stipulating the economics of the program and it did achieve what it was supposed to do.

In the past, the program was age related, kicking in at 55, and Rath said, “We lost some very good people, in my opinion as an administrator, who opted to take it at 55 … I certainly understood why they did that.” Later, officials worried that the 55-year-old threshold might be a future age discrimination problem, since the schedule was based on the age of the teacher, not years in the system. About a decade or so ago, the program was shifted to years of employment.

During the last contract negotiations, there was some concern about the retirement systems solvency and some concern that the stipend might be considered pay, boosting the salaries of teachers just before retirement. The pension is based on the last three years of earnings. So the program was changed and it was scheduled in such a way as to not burden the retirement system, Rath said.

Rath said, in the past, she advocated for Veterans Salary Schedule, for a period of time, since it allowed the system to plan for retirements.

“We were seeing declining enrollments, so we knew we had to reduce staff,” she said. “So I could look at the list of retirees and say, ‘OK, we can get away without this one, without this one …’ so we reduced a lot of staff during those years, but not filling retirements. And we didn’t have to let our least senior teachers go in a riff.”

However, that’s not the case now, she said, noting that the teachers don’t have to retire after accepting the schedule.

“From my perspective, it’s a big loss,” Rath said, noting that she is not involved in contract negotiations and had no control over the change. “I advised the board and I, certainly at times, try to advise the teachers.”

While trying to create sustainable budgets during the last two years, the system has eliminated or left vacant about 60 positions, including a number of teachers, due to retirements or layoffs.

“Now we don’t have that ability,” she said. “We know they are on the salary schedule but we don’t know if they are going to retire and they no longer have to … now it’s just the top 10 teachers who elect to take it.”

Union responds

While it might seem lucrative, expensive, or even controversial to be awarding such huge longevity bonuses to teachers, especially when they don't have to retire, an official from the school’s union say that teachers have earned stipend and count on it for their futures.

Michael Macri, the president of the Concord Education Association, and one of the teachers receiving the bonuses during the next two school years, defended the program, saying it was awarded to teachers who “stayed in the system” and made a commitment to Concord’s schools. He called it like a “planned retirement benefit” for teachers, who've worked more than two decades with the schools, staying in the system “knowing it would coming.”

“It does keep people here,” he said. “Teachers point to it as a reason to stay and they plan for it … experience also counts, especially when it comes to teaching.”

Macri said that teachers often use the money to pay off mortgages or retirement planning. He said teacher scales max out after 17 years, so they don’t get the same pay increases that the younger teachers get based on moves or education.

Teachers have also made concessions over the years, he said. During the last budget round, teachers were “told to help out the situation,” especially with health care, allowing for a change in plans that rates premiums on employees.

“We’ve given up things to get things,” he said.

The union reportedly accepted a new contract with the district last week that will include a 3.75 percent pay increase during the next three years as well as more changes in health care premiums. It is unknown what the fiscal impact of the new contract will be on an already difficult budget that focuses on in the wake of the elementary school consolidation initiative.