In an e-mail distributed on the school listserv in advance of tonight's budget meeting with the Town Council, Portsmouth Superintendent Susan Lusi offered some amplification on the widely quoted talking point (at least if you're Jeff Plumb) regarding step increases.

Dear Honorable Members of the Portsmouth Town Council, Portsmouth School Committee, and Members of the Portsmouth Community,

When we talk about budget, as we will again tonight, I think we should collectively work very hard to make sure that the information we use is accurate at all times. To this end, I want to address some of the information distributed over the weekend regarding the Town Council’s vote on June 2 that proposed level funding the School Department’s budget, and in particular, what it conveys about the School Committee’s contract with our teachers.

The handout states, “Currently, Portsmouth teachers advancing from 8 years longevity to 9 years receive a 19% raise. Accordingly, all future pay checks for these employees will, for their lifetime, include this increase.”

This statement is true, but it’s only a part of the story. A high ranking RI Department of Education official made a similar statement about this large increase some months ago, in the context of funding expenditures, and I e-mailed him the following information along with the attached teacher step data from the Rhode Island Association of School Committees:

·Of the districts reporting, Portsmouth’s relative ranking on salary steps ranges from dead last on Step 1 to 4th on Step 9.*

·Our tenth (and top) step ranks 12th in the state; goes to 15th when you take into account districts with a Step 11 and 16th when you take into account the district with a 12th step.

·We do have a large, percentage increase between steps 8 and 9. The large jump used to be between 9 and 10 but it moved to 8 to 9 through a series of negotiations which included 2 years with no COLAs and lengthening the school day by 30 minutes.

·Our salary scale may be atypical given this large increase, but if you are asking the “bang for your buck” question, I think our approach of keeping steps lower prior to year 9 and having a top step that is really at the middle of the pack, probably saves our community money relative to a number of others.

·In other words, the annual percentage increase for steps may be larger, but the total paid out in salary over the professional life of a teacher may be lower than that of many districts.

I spoke to the RIDE official by phone after sending this information, and he agreed that he should stop using our step increase as a negative financial example. Since that time, someone in my office called the communities listed on the attachment that had not reported, and we learned that our top step teachers are actually 18th out of 36.

It is very important to raise questions about contractual salaries and benefits, as well as other costs of running our public systems, but it is crucial that this be done fairly and with complete information, rather than characterizing an entire contract via one step increase. It is equally important to look at all contracts in context, not just teachers’.

The contracts of all municipalities are available at http://www.muni-info.ri.gov/municipal%20contracts/. There is also a link to School Department contracts on that page but I could not get it to work. Another website that features municipal and school department contracts is http://www.themoneytrail.org/track.php. Take a look for yourselves.

Regards,
Sue Lusi

*Portsmouth rankings on all steps are as follows of the 27 districts reporting:
Step 1 Last
Step 2 10th
Step 3 15th
Step 4 17th
Step 5 18th
Step 6 22nd
Step 7 21st
Step 8 23rd
Step 9 4th
Step 10 12th (goes to 15th when look @ Step 11 and 16th when go to step 12)

— Susan F. Lusi, Ph.D.
Superintendent
Portsmouth School Department

Download attachement Teacher Steps with Portsmouth Rankings" (Excel)