Today, Carpentersville District 300 teachers were voting on whether to ratify the contract recently negotiated by the LEAD300 union folks and the school board.
You can read the entire contract here, complete with red color to indicate last minute changes.
The most interesting last minute change in the contract is seen below:
High school teachers (excluding PE and music) teaching a sixth (6th) assignment for the 2012-2013 school year shall receive a one-time, extra pay stipend in the amount of $2,200. High school teachers who work a combination of PE and other subjects will receive a prorated stipend based upon their non-PE assignment. The total amount of stipends paid cannot exceed $90,000.
I’m going to skim through it and see what I find interesting.
- Taxpayers will finance “1.16 Full Time Equivalents of member of the bargaining unit time for the purpose of conducting Association business,” minus the cost of hiring a substitute. (President Release Time)
- Maximum students K-2 in 2013-14 will be 27 (28 enrolled), 3rd to 5th 30 (31 enrolled)
- Maximum students K-2 in 2014-15 will be 26 (27 enrolled), 3rd to 5th 28 (29 enrolled)
- PE and music education teachers’ student contact time will decrease from 1575 to 1500 minutes per week.
- Maximum students for middle school in 2013-14 will be 186, average class of 31, paid overload if more
- Maximum students for middle school in 2013-14 will be average class of 31, paid overload if more
- Middle School teachers shall have no more than 300 minutes of student contact per day
- Based on a nine period day, all general education teachers shall teach no more than five class periods plus one ELT per day or six classes. If more, shall be paid one-fifth of base salary
- High School teachers shall have no more than 285 minutes of student classes plus one ASP may be assigned 155 students; high school teachers teaching six (6) classes may be assigned 186 students. If more, overload pay.
- In the 2014-2015 school year, high school teachers may be assigned a cap of 31 students per class. If more, overload pay.
- High school teachers shall not be required to teach in more than two different subject area departments in any given school semester without additional compensation at the rate of $600.00 per semester.
- Instead of coming to school twenty minutes early and staying twenty minutes after school, the new contract says fifteen minutes and five minutes, respectively181 days of work.
- 181 days of work.
- Divers Ed is limited to three students per vehicle.
- There is whistle blowing protection.
- Twelve sick days credited at the beginning of the year; unused sick days may accumulate without limit.
- Two personal days a year which shall be accumulated as sick days if unused.
- No docking for jury, DCFS, court or administrative hearings or testimony.
- There is a sick leave bank
- Early retirement is possible at age 55 without discount provisions under some circumstances. The District will pay the employer share of the early retirement penalty.
- Up to 40 days of unpaid sick leave can be put into an HRA upon retirement.
- Employees notifing the District that one is retiring four years ahead of time shall receive an increase equal to three percent compounded of the teacher’s TRS creditable earnings for the previous school year for a maximum of four years immediately prior to retirement,plus $500 a year for an HRA account.
- Extra pay amounts and schedule will increase by 2%, 1% and 1% over the three years of the contract.
- A goal has been set that health insurance costs not increase more than 14% a year. If they do, the goal is to cut benefits.
- Taxpayers will pay 70% of the cost of family health insurance.
- 80% of the cost of dental insurance shall be paid by the taxpayers.
- Taxpayer-paid life insurance of $50,000 shall be provided.
- 80% of vision insurance shall be paid by the taxpayers.
- $250 a year will be put in each HRA.
- Mileage will be paid traveling from school to school and for district meetings.
- Members on a step that cannot advance on the salary schedule will receive a 3%, 2% and 3% increase over the three-year contract.
- The District shall pay 5% (5 percentage points of the required 9.5% of payroll) of the TRS payment.
- There’s an extra pay for extra work table.
- The name of the Pom-Pom Squad has been changed to Athletics Dance Team.
- The Instructional Rate is typically paid for work that requires planning, instruction, testing, and/or creation of written documents.
- The Non-Instructional Rate is paid for work that requires physical presence but not instruction.
- There is plenty of language about Special Education.
- A member of a protected group is generally one who is older than 40, disabled, a female or a minority. One may not treat a member of a protected group differently than the rest of the employee group without cause. The burden of proof is on the supervisor.
Salary Schedules
Click to enlarge this salary schedule.
Click to enlarge.
Click to enlarge.
Licensed Practical Nurses get paid $22.60 to $33.40 per hour.
“PE and music education teachers’ student contact time will decrease from 1575 to 1500 minutes per week.”
1500 minutes / 60 = 25 hours a week.
All of the above is outrageous, teachers are now holding children hostage.
If the
School Board does not cave in, the teachers strike.
No one in the private world achieves such benefits in this day and age.
Why don’t the teachers try to steal more money from the taxpayers than this small raise?
After all it will not be long before the taxpayers have nothing to give.
But why am I saying this, the teachers do not care at all about their students so why should they be concerned about the taxpayers.
Holy crap! Work with the kids for 5 hours/day (I know there’s an hour or two of planning, grading, etc.) and only have to work 181 days for that kind of pay…and retire at 55?!?
Why play the lotto when you could just screw the taxpayers and be guaranteed million dollar benefits?
And the unions wonder why taxpayers hate them with a passion?
I WANT to like my children’s teachers, but based on their actions they ONLY care about our kids when it’s time to hold them hostage and screw the taxpayers!!
Foreclosures, struggling families, great recession…who cares?!
I AM A UNION TEACHER SO PAY ME AND SHOVE IT!
It’s a sad world we live in…
Besides teachers being greedy and insensitive , the School Board may want to run background checks, court records, on teachers from time to time, as part of their evaluations.
These are the people who are influencing our kids’ lives for the better part of the day, and overpaid for being there.
Yes many teachers retire at 55.
Start teaching at 22, work 33 years, exchange 2 years of accumulated sick leave, retire with full pension benefits at 55.
How generous are those pensions?
Full pension benefits are 75% of the average of the last 4 years pay.
For those teachers who diligently passed college classes to achieve their lane movements (BA, BA+15, MA, etc.), and/or had stipends (coaching, club leader, dept chair, etc.) for extra duty work, their last 4 years salary can easily average $100,000.
Which means their starting pensions are $75,000.
We are talking Chicago suburbs and Chicago also has good pay and pensions but it’s on a different pension program.
When teacher unions report average pensions are a modest $x, they don’t include how many years of teaching that included, or what retirement period that covers, or what geographic region that covers, so the number sounds modest.
Now $75,000 pensions hasn’t always been the case.
Many teachers who retired years ago are shocked to hear this.
Many teachers who didn’t work 35 years are shocked to hear this.
Many teachers who didn’t have stipends or diligently take enough college classes during their teaching career are shocked to hear this.
Many teachers in central and southern Illinois are shocked to hear this.
Many teachers currently working in poor blue collar Chicago suburbs are not shocked to hear this, because their pay is often as large or larger than teachers in wealthy suburbs.
There’s many nuances to the pensions.
But pension benefits and teacher pay has increased dramatically over the years in the Chicago suburbs.
Teacher pension benefits in Illinois are one of the largest political and financial scandals in the history of the United States.
See going back to 1940, maybe earlier, the State was often not making it’s full pension contribution to the teacher pension fund.
The TRS teacher pension fund receives contributions from teachers, school districts, and the state, although in the majority of school districts in Illinois the school district picks up some or all of the teachers contribution in what’s commonly known as Board Paid TRS.
The press reports that.
Here’s what the press doesn’t report.
Or at best glosses over.
Incredibly, on a regular basis, pension benefits were added or increased by state legislators and governors, even though the state was not making it’s full contribution for existing pension benefits.
Obviously it makes no financial sense to increase benefit levels when existing benefit levels were not funded.
But if you are a politician and Governor, it makes political sense.
Because teacher unions provide lots of campaign contributions, votes, and electioneering assistance.
Then in 1970 the pension protection clause was added to the Illinois State Constitution to guarantee teacher and all state pensions (state workers, university professors, legislators, and judges are also considered state pensions).
The pension hiking floodgates opened.
Pensions are now guaranteed.
Let’s increase them!
For votes, campaign contributions, and electioneering assistance!
Because pensions are now guaranteed!
In 38 of 40 years from 1971 – 2011, pension hiking and expansion legislation was passed!
Even though the State was not making it’s full annual pension payments to the pensions plans.
The response was to pass legislation to further increase the State’s pension payments.
Teacher unions, lobbyists, state legislators, governors, and teachers don’t tell the press that.
No press releases from unions or school districts about pension hiking legislation.
So the press doesn’t report it.
But you have to pay for it.
So the Chicago Democrats (Quinn, Cullerton, Madigan) and their political allies are blaming big teacher salary increases on big pensions which require big pension contributions the state can’t afford.
Teacher unions and teachers blame the state for not making its pension contributions on the pension shortfall.
What the politicians, unions, and teachers are not telling you is the biggest cause of the problem.
Thirty eight years of pension hiking and expansion legislation is the biggest reason teacher and administrator pensions are unaffordable.
Politicians, teacher unions, teacher union lobbyists, and teachers were behind the pension hiking legislation.
They don’t want to take the blame for the pension hiking legislation.
The rules for calculating a teacher pension that were in place in 1971 have all been changed through state legislation.
It was all about greed.
Just like the TV show, American Greed – Scams, Scoundrels, and Suckers.
The Scam – The Illinois Pension Scam
The Scoundrels – Politicians, teacher unions, teacher union lobbyists, and teachers.
The Suckers – The Taxpayers.
I listed in the comments under this posting the list of stipends.
Stipends result in increased pay.
http://mchenrycountyblog.com/2012/12/16/district-300-teachers-contract/comment-page-1/#comment-191616
“The District shall pay 5% (5 percentage points of the required 9.5% of payroll) of the TRS payment.”
That is a complete joke.
To recap for the uninformed.
Teachers are supposed to contribute 9.4% to the Teachers Retirement System of Illinois (TRS) pension plan.
In the majority of the school districts in Illinois, they do not.
Rather, the school board/district/taxpayers) agrees in the majority of school districts to contribute some or all of the 9.4%.
The portion of the teachers pension contribution picked up by the school district is commonly known as “board paid TRS”.
Teacher unions and teachers claim board paid TRS is “in lieu of a salary increase” and that it’s a better deal for the taxpayer than a salary increase.
It’s just another way to increase pay during collective bargaining.
Have you heard the latest teacher union concession regarding pension negotiations in Springfield.
They are conceding an additional 2% pension contribution.
Another complete joke.
Pretty much like hitting an elephant with a fly swatter.
And what do you think will happen during collective bargaining.
Many teacher unions will try to convince the school district to pick up that 2% as “board paid TRS”.
School districts should be prohibited in state law from picking up any portion of teacher pension contributions.
I wonder if this occurs in any other states?