Historically, the Humboldt County School District has provided equitable salary raises to administrators, classified staff and certified staff across the district. However, Senate Bill 231, passed during the last legislative session, purposely excludes administration from the raises given to educators from the state for the next two years, thus pushing the decision to provide raises to all school district staff to the Humboldt County School District (HCSD) Board of Trustees. Funds would have been shifted from the General Fund to cover those raises.
SB 231 has been dubbed as a bill to help combat the shortage of teachers across the nation and provide raises to all classified staff and certified staff, totaling up to $250 million dollars from the state.
At its regular meeting on Sept. 26, the motion by Trustee Lonnie Hammagren to approve an incentive match from the HCSD’s general fund for administrators did not pass, with the members split 4-3.
Trustees Sabrina Uhlmann, Abe Swenesen, and Hammargren were in favor of the motion and Trustees Jenna Owen, Nicole Bengochea, Lorie Woodland and Ron Moser were opposed to the motion.
Many administrators, classified staff and certified staff were present at the meeting to state their support or opposition of the motion before it was put to a vote, all with very compelling reasons as to why the motion should or should not pass.
During the previous negotiations, Humboldt County approved a 10 percent salary increase to all staff alike over the next two years, but administration will be left out of the other increases appropriated by the state and HCSD Superintendent Dr. Dave Jensen explained that the consideration to match the funds for admin from the district’s general fund, totaling up to $223,890.92 over the biennium, is to provide equal application of increases across all staff.
“Classified and certified staff deserve the increase, that’s not in question and nobody’s refuting that, but can we say that admin doesn’t deserve the same courtesy?” Jensen said during the meeting.
According to Humboldt County Support Staff President Andrea Kelly and Humboldt County Education Association Secretary and Nevada State Education Association Board of Directors Member Heather Simms, there is great disparity between pay for admin and support staff and most of the educators work multiple jobs in order to be able to support themselves and their families.
Simms said “While we appreciate our administrators, the intent of the legislative bill was to boost teacher and support staff pay partially due to the shortage of these positions across the state… Extra pay for administrators was excluded from SB 231 for a reason.”
Humboldt County Education Association President Malinda Riemersma called the increases from SB 231 a “huge win” for certified and classified staff and explained that she and others in the district fear that the legislators will not allocate funds for teachers raises during the next session if they see that district’s will use their own general fund balances to pay for raises.
Executive Director of the Nevada State Education Association Brian Lee voiced similar concerns about the “long term negative effects” that using general funds to provide raises may have for Humboldt County and other rural districts.
Humboldt County Director of Educational Opportunity Deanna Owens appealed to the Board to approve the incentive funds stating that opposition “could create division and discord among dedicated staff members” and pointed out that many administrators have spent many years in classrooms as teachers before becoming administrators and the added responsibilities imposed on admin to “bridge policy and practice” is reason enough for the HCSD to provide the increases.
Lowry High School Principal Sean Taylor also voiced support for providing the increases to administrators stating that the raises would be justified and are essential because admin hold immense responsibility for making critical decisions and that it is fair to provide the increases to everyone.
Others also expressed that they felt that the extra funds for that were under consideration for administrator raises should have been on the table during Humboldt County’s negotiations with all staff and that the bargaining had been done “in bad faith”.
Jensen and Trustee Uhlmann, also a member of the negotiations team, both said that the legislators had led districts to believe that admin would be included in the raises from SB 231, so the HCSD had negotiated in good faith and were not expecting that admin be left out.
Jensen also asked the Board to consider how their decision might motivate future teachers to promote to admin if they can just make similar daily rates and stay in a teaching position, with Humboldt County having a 11 percent vacancy rate among administrators and a five percent vacancy rate amongst classified staff.
In the HCSD the newest teachers are contracted to work 185 days a year while some admin are contracted to work over 300, explaining the difference in pay between administrators and certified and classified staff. Other factors like scheduled lunch hours, set hours, additional compensation for time beyond contracted hours, longevity pay, sports coaching opportunities, and more also impact pay difference across the district, according to Jensen.
He also pointed out that the highest paid admin position in the district makes seven percent more than the highest earning teacher and that there are six certified staff members that make a very “well-earned compensation in excess of $100,000”.
“This is about the administrators who work hard on behalf of our district and our students and I believe—truly—that they deserve this,” said Jensen.
Trustee Woodland said “I think that [administrators] are being compensated fairly for the jobs that they are doing,” and later stated that the state gave classified and certified staff the raises and that the Board is still remaining equitable by upholding that decision because the Board has already approved a 10 percent raise across the district.
“This money is for the people in the trenches, let them have it.”