Alachua County School District, teachers' union reach tentative salary agreement
After failing to meet the state’s October deadline for negotiating teacher salaries, Alachua County Public Schools and the Alachua County Education Association (ACEA) have reached a tentative salary agreement.
The tentative agreement between the district and the union includes an all-around salary increase of 3.5% for instructional and non-instructional personnel in addition to the automatic “step” increase — typically around 1% — which employees receive at the beginning of each school year if they completed half of their contract the prior year.
School grades: State of Florida releases annual school grades. See how Alachua County schools were graded.
“It is a typical, significant raise and we have had a long negotiation period,” said ACEA President Carmen Ward. “The union continued to illustrate that there was enough money to make employees more of a priority and we are satisfied that we pushed the district as far as they would go in this round of negotiations and it's very late in the year.”
She also said the union has been negotiating since October 2022 and originally proposed a 10% raise over two years with employees receiving a 5% raise this school year and another 5% next school year. Despite proposing much more, Ward believes the 3.5% is satisfactory considering the district’s initial offer of just 1%.
“We made a better increase than we've had in several years,” Ward said. “I’ve been in the public school system for 33 years and I would say I could count on one hand the years that we've had above 3% as an increase.”
The district said the salary increase would be retroactive to July 1, 2023, depending on when each employee’s contract took effect. If an employee’s contract for 2023-2024 started on the first day of school, for example, the raise would be retroactive to that date. This means that the raise employees have not yet received this school year will be paid out through one check.
“We appreciate the collaboration between the district and the ACEA to reach this tentative agreement,” Superintendent Shane Andrew said in a news release. “I’m sure it’s welcome news for employees. Once the salary schedule is ratified by employees and approved by the School Board, district staff will be working very hard to get those dollars into employees' paychecks as quickly as possible.”
If employees vote to approve the agreement in time, the district plans to place the new salary schedule on the Jan. 16 school board meeting agenda.
The deal comes after members of the teachers' union earlier this month attended a school board meeting to speak out against Superintendent Andrew’s proposal to give himself a $50,000 raise and other benefits, despite the district failing to meet the state’s Oct. 1 deadline for negotiating teacher salaries.
“This is not the time for the superintendent to receive a raise that so outweighs what the people in the trenches, the people that actually are the public school system, what they are looking forward to earning," Ward said at the Dec. 5 meeting.
Andrew currently makes $175,000 a year and his contract proposal suggests that he be paid $225,000 annually from December 2023 to December 2026, in addition to a 3 or 4% raise each year beginning in July 2024. He also requested 20 weeks of severance pay and an $800 monthly allowance for car expenses.
Board members did not vote on the contract.
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Alachua County Public Schools releases tentative salary agreement
