Manatee County School District teachers voice frustration with union response to salary error

EAST MANATEE -- Teacher frustrations boiled over Wednesday as union and district officials tried to explain why and how 174 teachers were accidentally overpaid through no fault of their own.

The district will strip the teachers of the higher pay and return them to the correct pay levels -- so they are not making more than their peers -- for the 2016-17 academic year. For some teachers, than can mean a pay decrease of almost $3,000.

"On so many levels, I'm trying not to feel betrayed," said Deb Peterson, a teacher at Tara Elementary. "That's enough for me to consider looking to find another place to work."

The issue affects 174 of 2,800 Manatee County School District teachers.

Affected teachers are new to Manatee County schools this year but came to the district with experience in other districts or states. An error in finding the right pay slot to reflect previous experience resulted in new teachers making more money than teachers already working in the district with the same type of degrees and experience.

About 30 teachers, including some not personally affected, showed support for teachers who were by attending the meeting at Braden River High School.

Pat Barber, head of the teacher union, and Bill Vogel, district chief negotiator, answered most of the questions.

Sarah Brown, district head of human resources, was also there with a number of staff members.

Even with some answers, however, questions and concerns lingered.

For Amanda Dawsey, a teacher at Witt Elementary who was not affected but wanted to show support for a friend at the school, the problem comes down to district salary negotiations

during the school year, instead of occurring before the school year.

"This is a union problem," she said, saying none of this would have happened if the union negotiated in a timely manner. "Do your jobs like we do ours."

Vogel said he agrees but sometimes state budget delays hamper negotiations.

Barber said contract negotiations are done to gain the maximum benefit possible for teachers.

"I'd think you guys would want a better contract instead of a fast contract," she said.

Issues with the union were a big part of the discussion with its support of teachers criticized.

In response to a teacher's question, Barber would not say how many district teachers are dues-paying union members. After the meeting, a few teachers said they are reconsidering union membership.

The error in the schedule stems from Florida legislation in 2011 mandating districts create a performance pay system for teachers by 2014. The model allows teacher base salaries to increase after good evaluations. That piece hasn't been fully implemented yet across the state or in Manatee County, partially because the state rolled out new student exams last year.

Teachers who worked in districts before the change were allowed to decide whether to go to the performance pay system or stay on the old pay schedule, where pay increased based on years of service.

The Manatee County School District has one pay schedule, called the grandfathered pay schedule, for teachers who chose to remain on the old system, and the performance pay schedule, for teachers who moved over to the new model.

New teachers are automatically put on the performance pay schedule. Since the performance piece hasn't been implemented yet, the pay schedules remain identical.

An error in the performance pay placement chart used to determine where newly hired teachers with experience should be placed caused the mistake, school officials said. The previous grandfathered pay schedule used to have different bumps in pay based on years of experience with some years providing a bigger bump in pay than others, which has since been adjusted to be equal increases every time.

When the conversion to make the performance pay placement chart for the 2015-16 school year was created, those larger increases, equalized on the grandfathered chart, were not taken into account for the performance pay chart.

The first error was for teachers coming in with three or four years of experience and it compounded up the placement chart from there, which is why the fix to the problem varies from teacher to teacher.

The solution was negotiated between the district and the union. The affected salary change range for teachers is between $300 and $3,000.

The Manatee Education Association union board approved the solution to return teachers to the proper placement next year. A memorandum of understanding between the district and union was sent to Diana Greene before the announcement, but the item did not have to go before the school board for approval.

Jason Memmer, one of the affected teachers, said he was disappointed district leadership and school board members were not at the meeting Wednesday to show support.

"We're not fixing the issue here," he said. "We're really not."

Meghin Delaney, education reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7081. Follow her on Twitter @MeghinDelaney.

This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 11:59 PM with the headline "Manatee County School District teachers voice frustration with union response to salary error ."