Missouri teacher pay gaps persist
Feb. 20—Local schools aren't able to compete on teacher pay with higher-tax-base peers in suburban Kansas City, and a new report reveals the scale of this problem.
Prepared annually, the Missouri Salary Schedule and Benefits Report compares 518 agencies, including the St. Joseph School District, local peers like Mid-Buchanan County R-V and regional competitors like the Park Hill School District. It is in St. Joseph's comparison with the latter where the numbers differ the most.
Factors like tax base and employee cost of living are considered essential in understanding these differences. The rate at which taxes are successfully collected, and at which individuals avoid going into arrears, also matters.
"You have to make sure you're comparing apples to apples," said David Foster, Board of Education president, who recently earned a certification from the Missouri School Boards Association on understanding such matters of state policy. "Studies that I see say pay is still a nationwide, No. 1 issue. But within our district, over the last several years, morale has been the biggest issue. As long as we can retain more staff than we did last year, then I think we'll be on the right track."
According to the MSTA report, the highest paid teacher at Park Hill, located about 40 minutes south of town along Interstate 29, makes nearly $11,000 more than the best-compensated St. Joseph teacher. Depending on their credentials, an entry-level Park Hill teacher can expect to earn $3,000 to $4,000 more per year. A master's degree holder can start out at nearly $46,000 of salary at Park Hill; St. Joseph pays a minimum of nearly $41,900. The gaps are roughly equivalent between St. Joseph and the North Kansas City School District.
Independence Public Schools, although having a higher enrollment at nearly 13,800 (against St. Joseph's roughly 10,300), serves a community that is demographically and economically similar to St. Joseph. Their highest-paid educator earns $81,713, against $76,418 for St. Joseph. Entry-level pay differs by $2,000 to $3,000, depending on credential. Independence cites its recent decision to adopt a four-days-per-week class calendar as a key factor in future staff recruitment.
One wild card exists in understanding the pay figures: Missouri legislators mandated a $38,000 salary floor for all full-time teachers last year and set up a one-year program to help districts cover that cost. Todd Fuller, a spokesman for the MSTA, said it is not at all clear yet if the Legislature will renew that requirement: If they do, will they sustain special funding for it?
"We know that there's never going to be a level playing field between school districts in suburban Kansas City and what smaller tax-base districts north of Kansas City can offer," Fuller said. "That will never be completely level. But there needs to be something that would allow for those districts to recruit and retain not just new teachers, but existing teachers, as well."
St. Joseph board member Kenneth Reeder said he is eager to increase local teacher pay and expects to do that to some degree this spring. But, he said, he will insist that pay increase benefits teachers only and is not "indexed" with administrator salary hikes as well. In a given year, the district might give a 2% to 5% hike to all employees.
"I'm trying to figure it out, why do we have to do that and how can we avoid doing that?" Reeder said. "Everybody likes teacher salary raises, but I don't want to be forced to raise pay for administrators at the same time. That's been my concern."
Marcus Clem can be reached at marcus.clem@newspressnow.com. Follow him on Twitter: @NPNowClem
