January 24, 2025 • 47 mins
In this episode, we discuss the expiration of the Idaho Educator Career Ladder, the funding framework the Idaho Legislature has used for 10 years to provide predictable funding and raises to educators in Idaho. We’ll talk with IEA Region Director Jason McKinley, who works in IEA’s Region 2 in the Lewiston-Moscow area, and IEA Associate Director Matt Compton about what challenges these changes to may mean for educator contract negotiations and teacher pay.
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Episode Transcript
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Mike Journee (00:00):
I welcome to the IAEA reporter podcast, a regular
(00:15):
discussion about the news andevents important to Idaho
Education Association membersand those who value public
education, IAEA members arepublic school educators from all
over the state and members ofthe largest union in Idaho.
They're Idaho's most importanteducation experts, and they use
their influence to fight for afree, quality and equitable
public education for everystudent in the state. I'm Mike
(00:38):
Journee, communications directorat DIA and I'll be your host for
this episode. Today, we'lldiscuss the expiration of the
Idaho educator career ladder,the funding framework the Idaho
legislature has used for 10years to provide predictable
funding and raises to educatorsin Idaho. We'll talk with IEA
region director Jason McKinley,who works in ieas region two, in
(00:58):
the Lewiston Moscow area, and IAAssociate Executive Director
Matt Compton about whatchallenges these changes may
mean for Educator contractnegotiations and teacher pay.
But first a quick summary ofwhat happened this week during
the 2025 Idaho legislature withIaaS political director Chris
Perry. Chris Perry, thank youfor joining us for this quick
(01:21):
roundup of the week at thelegislature. You know, it's
things are starting to pick up alittle bit. The pace is picking
up. We're seeing more bills andthe education committees come
through. But before we talkabout legislation, I wanted to
talk about the 2025, lobby daythat we had earlier this week,
and every 200 members fromaround the state, came to Idaho
(01:43):
or came to Boise and and lobbiedthe legislature, talked to
legislature about about thingsthat are important, things that
are on their minds. It's alwaysa great opportunity to really
get into the space of thislegislature and let people know
what's going on in
Chris Parri (01:58):
classroom. Yeah, it was, I think it was a huge
success this year. It was a lotof fun. We had a panel for the
first time, I think at leastsince I've worked here. It was
Quinn Perry from the Out ofSchool Boards Association, Paula
Keller from Idaho business foreducation, and Heather Williams
from the Idaho Rural SchoolsAssociation. And then our guest
keynote speaker also joined thepanel, and that was former
(02:21):
representative Joel John fromArizona. He cast one of the key
votes in favor of theiruniversal ESA program down
there. And to quote him, ifthere was one vote he could take
back, it would be that one. Soit was a pretty cool group of
people. Definitely a lot of antivoucher vibes in the room for
(02:41):
the dinner for sure. Then thefollowing day, got up bright and
early, and a bunch of oureducators walked over the
building and had meetingsthroughout the day. And all of
the feedback I've gotten thisweek from legislators I've been
meeting with has been prettystellar, that teachers were
pretty focused on students,which is, I think, a smart,
smart way to approach thefunding problems that we see
(03:02):
that the legislature isresponsible for, and pointing
out the actual impacts it has onstudents. So all in all, just
really rad. They did such a goodjob. I'm so happy that day
happened, because I thinkeverybody in the building needed
some grounding in reality, andour teachers always do that.
Mike Journee (03:19):
Yeah, Joel, John was a really great counterpoint
to all this stuff we've beenhearing about how great the
voucher bill in Arizona is. It'sbeing held up as a model all
across the country, not justhere, but here as well as the
model legislation. It's thelegislation everybody wants to
get to who wants vouchers. Andhe really showed that this is
(03:40):
the terrible ideas at poorArizona. Their budget deficits
are exploding as a result of it,and it's Once that initial
modest voucher gets passed, itshows how quickly those things
mushroom and become giantprograms and separate school
programs from the public schoolssystem. So he was really great
(04:02):
counterpoint to that messaging.
And then, of course, another keypart of Lobby Day. This year, we
held a press conference in themiddle of Lobby Day calling on
lawmakers to reject vouchers.
What was so interesting aboutthis press conference was we had
representatives of the IdahoSchool Board Association. We had
representatives of the IdahoSchool Administrators
Association, and, of course,representatives from the Idaho
(04:25):
Education Association, theteachers union, standing in
unity against voucher schemesand telling lawmakers This is
bad. They talked about theimpacts on rural schools. They
talked about the lack ofaccountability that vouchers
often have for how that money isspent and how those tax dollars
spent. And then, of course, oneof our members, Melissa Farrow,
(04:47):
did a great job of talkingabout, what are we missing out
on by not fully funding ourpublic schools and instead
creating this separate schoolsystem with vouchers? So it was
a really great event, reallywell attended by the media. Lots
of coverage. Page, and I'll justput this quick plug in before we
talk about this. The folks cango to Idaho, ea.org, backslash
reporter, and read about all ofthese events that happened this
(05:08):
week. We got lots of coveragethat are going to be in our
newsletter this week. But it wasreally great event. I thought,
Chris, don't you?
Unknown (05:15):
Yeah, that was awesome.
It was great to see. And youknow, all the teachers and folks
waving signs and stuff behindthe speakers. I think was really
cool. The speakers just did anamazing job. Like that. Really
got me fired up and energized mein a week that, as we'll talk
about, I definitely needed alittle bit of energy for. But
yeah, it was really great to seeit.
Mike Journee (05:33):
So lava day was great. Part of the focus of the
press conference was we knew twovoucher bills were tending to be
introduced this week in thelegislature. And of course, that
did happen on Wednesday to kindof we're going to call them
competing voucher bills for thegovernor's attention. And one of
them was brought forward by arepresentative, Wendy Horman,
(05:56):
out of Idaho, falls it's thebill She's long promised. It's a
tax credit that, frankly, hasvery little accountability in
there about how those taxdollars are going to be spent
and that kind of thing. And thenthe second bill from Senator
Dave Lent, who is chairman ofthe Senate Education Committee,
who brought forward an expansionof the empowering parents grant
program as a voucher bill. Talkus to really quickly, just a
(06:19):
little bit about those twobills, and kind of what we see
going forward with those twopieces of legislation.
Unknown (06:25):
So yeah, her legislation, ostensibly, it's a
tax credit that's capped at $50million I think there was some
good discussion in the committeeabout like, so how do you cap a
tax credit? Essentially, whatyou're doing is saying, Okay,
we'll reimburse your tuitioncosts up to five grand, and
essentially you float thetuition cost to say your tuition
(06:48):
is 15 grand. Pay. Pay 15 grand.
Say you're a low income family,working family. You pay 15 grand
up front to a school, then youjust hope and pray that the
government doesn't run out ofmoney before they reimburse you
for that cost. No family isactually going to take that
risk. So when they say this isfor the the families who need it
the most, that's completelywrong. And of course, there's no
(07:09):
real accountability in this billat all. There was a lot of kind
of side long glances at thephilosophy of accountability,
like, well, you know, privateschools regulate themselves,
right? Yeah,
Mike Journee (07:22):
so we that's a bill we expected from her, but
I'll be honest, I wasn'texpecting Senator lent to bring
forward a bill to expand theempowering parents program. That
was an interesting twist for me.
I wasn't paying close attention.
Maybe you knew about it, butthat bill expands that program
by $20 million to to be 50million. Both numbers right in
line with the number that thegovernor mentioned during his
(07:43):
stay the state address aboutwhatever voucher program he
would support. So talk a littlebit about that bill, if you
would. Senator
Unknown (07:49):
Len, longtime friend, I think, to IEA, and I think when
the governor said we need $50million for a school choice
program, Senator Len said, Well,the best person to write this is
a long time critic of of theseprograms, someone who's done
research on it, so I think he'sbeing really thoughtful in the
way he constructs this program.
I don't think, I mean, we don'tagree with it, right? We we
(08:10):
don't think that any of theseprograms are, can be fair,
responsible, accountable andtransparent, as the governor
outlined, kind of inherently,but Lent is trying to construct
a completely, kind of newversion of these. And to his
credit, at least at the youknow, in the critique ahead of
the previous legislation aboutthe tax credit piece, he's
(08:33):
constructing it as an educationsavings account that would, that
would actually go to familiesbelow, mostly below $80,000 of
income. 75% of the bill will goto people who families who make
less than 60 grand. So he'stargeting low income folks with
the bill, I think, in directcontrast to the the rhetoric you
(08:53):
hear on the House side, thatbill will not be going to low
income folks, Lentz would andthen he's also added a kind of
suite of accountability metricson here that are, I think,
extremely popular amongstvoters, things like background
checks for employees that haveunsupervised contact with
students. I think that's apretty no brainer, like pretty
(09:14):
big no brainer, just protectkids, right? Standardized tests
so you can actually see what thereturn on investment is for
taxpayers maintain accurateenrollment data. Again, pretty
low bar compliance with statelaws related to special
education, non discriminationand parental rights. Again, if
you're putting this muchlegislative activity into
schools with taxpayer funds,doesn't make sense to just
(09:38):
create a huge loophole for otherschools that might be funded by
taxpayers,
Mike Journee (09:44):
and all the things that you just mentioned, Chris
are things that public schoolsdo already right? They're things
that are part of the workingmodel of public schools and
making sure that those folks whoare getting public dollars for
private school tuition should beheld to the same account.
Unknown (09:59):
He's kind. Calling the bluff on the competition piece,
I think because in a lot of thepro voucher people will be like,
well, this, you know, this makespublic schools have to compete
for students against privateschools, right? And the obvious
thing there is, it's notcompetition if you're playing by
completely different sets ofrules. So what Senator Lent is
(10:20):
doing is trying to give some ofthose rules also to the private
schools that would be gettingtaxpayer funds here to say,
Okay, if you want to compete,then here's how you're going to
compete. It's going to be a fairplaying field, right? So again,
we are not a fan of thislegislation. I think that
Senator Len has put a lot ofthought into it, and he's been
very transparent, I think, witheducators about this, saying,
(10:40):
essentially, the governor sayshe wants a $50 million school
choice program, and you caneither have representative
hormones version, or you canhave a version written by
someone who cares about publicschools deeply and has put a lot
of thought into this stuff.
We're on a good spot here, but Ithink Senator land has been a
really honest broker in theseconversations. Well, we watch
Mike Journee (11:01):
them, both of those bills as they go forward.
We probably expect a publichearing on both of them next
week as I'm taping this. This isFriday, so next week, it will
probably hear something aboutpublic hearings on both of
those, both bills going forwardand really quickly too,
Unknown (11:14):
if you want to take action on those bills. So
Senator Lenz version will be inSenate Education and then
representative hormones bill,which I think is probably the
one I would prioritize if youwere going to choose one to send
a bunch of emails and lettersand stuff. Representative
hormones legislation will be inthe house Revenue and Taxation
Committee sometime next week, sotry and get on the horn and
(11:37):
contact senators andrepresentatives on those
committees.
Mike Journee (11:41):
So Chris, we're also going to be putting
together an email option forfolks who want to to sound off
on these bills. If they go toidahoea.org and look at the
story about the legislation thisweek, there will be a link to a
tool in there that folks can dothat's an option for folks and
and members and others. Might begetting a text inviting them to
(12:01):
send emails around thislegislation. So Chris, we got
just a couple of minutes left. Iwant to talk really quickly
about the couple of other billsthat came forward this week.
Also on Wednesday, the HouseEducation Committee sent
representative Ted hill. Theybrought forward a rework of his
flag bill that was introducedlast week and endorsed by the
House Education Committee. Thereare a lot of questions about
(12:23):
that bill, in spite of the factthat the committee passed it
with a do pass recommendation tothe floor. It looks like
representative Hill is trying toanswer some of those questions.
I'm not sure if he succeeded ornot, but he reintroduced the
bill anyway. We think this is abill that's really targeted at
the pride flag, trying to keeppride flags out of classrooms,
something that our members havelong said is a really important
(12:47):
tool for making sure studentsfeel welcome and know that
they're in a safe place in aclassroom. Any thoughts about
this legislation? Yeah,
Unknown (12:55):
I think pride flags were a big one. I you know
representative mentioned the GADflag, that don't trade on me
flag, other kind of flags likethat. So it encompasses a whole
bunch of different types ofspeech for teachers and yeah, so
the committee sent it to thefloor with a do pass
recommendation, but he changedit to be more deleterious to the
(13:17):
First Amendment a little bithere. So and he added a piece
that you can also not displayflags of quote, unquote, hostile
nations. So, you know, in theoriginal bill, there was a carve
out that said, okay, yeah, likeyou're teaching history,
geography, whatever, yeah, youcan show flags of nations.
That's like, part of your normalcurriculum. That makes tons of
(13:40):
sense, right? That's prettycommon sense that even if the
rest of the bill isn't but yeah,so he changed it to, quote,
unquote, hostile nations.
Determining what a hostilenation is is a fascinating
discussion to get into. But youknow, as has been pointed out by
the bill sponsor, even theUnited States hasn't officially
declared war since World WarTwo. So, you know, including
like Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam,all of that never actually
(14:03):
declared war. So instead, islegislation asks a the school
board to figure out who thehostile nations are and develop
a flag policy that deletes thoseso now we have school boards
wading into foreign policy.
Apparently, you can imagine howinteresting that could possibly
(14:24):
get. So obviously, this is aserious BILL Right. Like, I
think that it's easy, I think tolaugh at this legislation
because of how ridiculous it isand like, how strange it is to
hear people saying, we need toconstrain speech to protect
liberty, right? That'sOrwellian, right? But the
(14:48):
obvious targets here are LGBTstudents, and there are a whole
bunch of other kind ofcurricular activities and
teacher activities that are justkind of taking the strays here,
right? Like there's always. Uh,collateral damage, and obviously
the felt direct damage to LGBTstudents and their families when
this kind of stuff goes through.
So a ridiculous bill, butsomeone to still take seriously
(15:11):
and fight back against. So weexpect that on the floor at some
points, well, they just
Mike Journee (15:17):
printed it. That's all they did yesterday. So
there'll be another publichearing in that committee about
this new legislation. Well, oneof the quick bill that I want to
touch on was Chris Mathias, arepresentative out of Boise, and
also a member of the HouseEducation Committee, brought
forward a bill about bullying.
It's a bill that he ran lastyear that died narrowly on the
House floor, but he brought itback again this year and just
got the endorsement of the HouseEducation Committee. They're
(15:40):
going to have a public hearingabout it. And again, this is
legislation that would requireschool district to both notify
parents of a bullying incident,the parents both of the victim
of the bullying and also of theaggressor of the bullying. We'll
see where this goes, and ithasn't done well in the past. In
previous years, I guess theHouse members last year felt it
was an overreach in some ways.
(16:03):
So anyway, that bill is comingforward, and we'll be keeping an
eye on that too.
Unknown (16:07):
Yeah. I mean, it's ironic, kind of talking about
representative Mathias bill asoverreach compared to the bill
we were just talking about.
Again, it is amazing, thescrutiny applied to
Representative Mathias bill,which is just letting parents
know that their kid is either abully or a victim of bullying.
This is not overreach, and lastyear's version was not overreach
(16:30):
either. So he kind of pared itdown a little bit, making sure
that the only notification thatwould be required is when the
incident rises to the level ofsuspension. So he's doing his
best trying to meet thesestandards. But again, we're
running into this kind ofpartisan thing. Represent
Mathias is a Democrat, representTed Hill is a Republican. And
you can kind of see the scrutinyand standards applied to the
(16:53):
minorities legislation is a lothigher than that of the majority
party, which I think is a reallydestructive dynamic when it
comes to actually passing goodpolicy. So anyways, it's a good
bill. We support this bill.
Representative Matthias has beenreally thoughtful in trying to
get bipartisan support for this,and it very narrowly died last
(17:14):
year. So he's doing his besthere, and I think it's really
admirable.
Mike Journee (17:19):
Well, we'll keep an eye on Bill, like I said, and
anything else that comes up herethis next week as well. So Chris
Perry, thank you for this quickrundown of the week, and good
luck at the steakhouse. Thanks,man. Appreciate
it. Next up on the Iowa reporterpodcast, the expiration of the
(17:40):
Idaho career ladder, theframework long used by the
legislature to fund educatorsalaries in the state. This
planned expiration poseschallenging problems for IA
locals as they look to theircontract negotiations this
spring, IAEA region directorJason McKinley and IAEA
Executive Associate ExecutiveDirector Matt Compton discuss
how educator pay could beimpacted. Well. Jason McKinley,
(18:06):
Matt Compton, thank you forjoining us for this edition of
the IE report podcast. And youknow, we're going to tackle a
meaty topic today. We're goingto talk about changes to Idaho's
educator career ladder and thethe the framework that the
lawmakers use to allocate moneyfor teacher salaries to the
(18:27):
school districts. In some ways,it was an intentional change
that that was always intended tohappen with the implementation
of the career ladder back in2015 but it could create some
challenges for us. Matt Hoffman,give us a little bit of a look
at what exactly is the careerladder and how is it going to
change in the next year or so?
Yeah, for
Unknown (18:50):
sure, the career ladder initially was placed into code
in 2015 this was my secondlegislative session with the
IAEA. When it was negotiated, itwas an extremely contentious
legislative fight betweenlawmakers and educators and
administrators. Originally, thesystem that they came up for the
career ladder only had tworungs. It had a $40,000 starting
(19:15):
teacher salary rung, and thatmid tier would be a $50,000 and
then they came up with somethingthat was called the master
educator premium, which was aset of a whole bunch of hoops
and things that educators had tojump through. They had to create
a portfolio demonstrating all ofthe work that they've done over
the past three years in theirclassroom. They demonstrate that
(19:36):
to the administrators, if theypass some sort of rubric
examination, then they wouldqualify for that master educator
premium, which was additionalresources that was supposed to
go to the educator. A couple ofyears later, when Governor
little is elected, he sees thatthe career ladder the first five
years of implementation wasabout to expire and in 2018 And
(20:00):
put in an additional rung thecareer ladder, so that the top
tier was now going to be $60,000so you have a 40, a 50 and a
$60,000 tier for the careerladder. And over the last
handful of years, thelegislature has been dumping 10s
of millions dollars intosalaries and benefits based on
the formulaic outlay of thecareer ladder. These were things
(20:24):
that were all decided, both in2015 and 2018 how much money was
going to be invested intosalaries for educators based on
the total number of teachers,and this was going to be a clean
and easy way for us to find waysto compensate educators but
maintain local control fornegotiations at home. So this
(20:45):
year, what we're findingourselves is that the career
ladder, just like in 2016 isexpiring, meaning there are no
longer large tranches of moneythat are going into the career
ladder or salaries from thelegislature. Instead, now
they're looking at, how do theyadjust salaries and benefits for
educators based on a percentagein the governor's state of the
(21:08):
state? He said, I'd like for usto look at 5% cost of living
increases for all Idahoemployees, which would include
teachers. Right now, what jfacis trying to figure out is, how
do they take a career ladderformula where salaries and
benefits are placed upon a gridand within cohorts and cells,
(21:28):
and how do you increase each ofthose by 5% what does that look
like when that money goes out tothe school districts in
preparation for bargaining,essentially right now in the
second week of The legislativesession, that's where we find
ourselves in discussing thecareer ladder.
Mike Journee (21:45):
So essentially, what we're saying here is that
this framework, that for thepast 10 years the legislature
has been investing in kind of anautomatic investment in teacher
salaries over that period, ischanging, and now it's going to
be a little bit more part of thepolitical process each session
that the legislature in town. Isthat correct?
Matt Compton (22:07):
I think that's a very good way to describe it.
With a career ladder. You know,year over year, we could roughly
estimate how much money wasgoing into salaries and benefits
based on the number ofeducators, the number of
students, we knew how manysupport units we were going to
have unless we knew how muchmoney was going out to
districts, they're going to makechanges to how much money and
(22:28):
how that money goes out todistricts. That's going to be
really what complicatesnegotiations going into this
year. And
Mike Journee (22:36):
Jason, you know, we asked you to be part of this
conversation, because you're oneof the most important experts
around on school districtfinancing and the war. It's a
complex issue all the way fromthe state level down into the
school district level. From whatI understand, school districts
aren't expected to necessarilymatch the career ladder in their
salary schedules. Salaryschedules are set at the local
(22:58):
level, and reaching here. That'skind of created some challenges
with Horace, with our members,with some of the investments
that they've been making oncareer salaries, it's been
confusion, I think, among someof our members. Can you talk a
little bit about how that worksat the local level, and how they
set salaries of local level, andhow that's related to the career
ladder for us?
Unknown (23:19):
Mr. Mike, and you've touched on something that really
it's been a 10 year process thatwe still haven't gotten
everybody at the same level ofunderstanding, is that the
career ladder is a phrase thatis used as part of our salary
based apportionment model forpeople to understand the way
salary based apportionment worksin Idaho really hasn't changed
(23:41):
since 1994 the crew ladder madea change from what's called a
Progress Index to arbitrarynumbers, and unfortunately, what
happened in 2015 is there aredistricts that have
traditionally and continue toonly pay as the state pays. And
when you had a progressive indexthat made equity in a
(24:03):
predictable salary schedule. Ithad 13 vertical steps, seven
horizontal columns. And when thecareer ladder team in the place
districts that moved to that, wehad local associations buy into
it. The problem with that wasthere's no equity in the career
ladder allocation. We had caseswhere over a five year period,
one accrual letter rungs may goup by $5,000 where another rung
(24:28):
might go up by $850 there's noequity in that. When these
monies come to the local level,there was always a perception if
you were a p3 and the p3 valuewas $45,000 that's what the
State gave to pay you, andthat's what you would be paid.
That's what you were, quote,unquote word, the reality of
which is that number getscombined with all the other
(24:51):
numbers in your district, andrun through a formula, and you
get what's called an averagesalary. But you take all the
employees in the district,they've got one day of teaching
or. 100 years of teaching, andyou get the exact same dollar
amount that is put into theformula for every teacher. It's
very typical today that theaverage salary in the district
is $50,000 or maybe a littlebetter than $50,000 in some
(25:14):
districts, every teacher wherethey been teaching one day or
one minute, that's how muchthey're actually generating. But
it gets put through a formula,and that's your total
apportionment. The state, inmoving away from, as Matt
described, these continuingpockets of money, has put us
into a pre 2015 situation fordistricts where their salary
(25:38):
based apportionment is no longerpredictable, ladder gave
predictability. It gave acommitment, and it was for lack
of better terms, it was a safe asafe way to plan ahead for
school districts, I think ofsome of the districts like
ponderae comes to mind, wherethey did some very progressive
things based upon the commitmentthe state made with the career
(26:01):
ladder, they could not make thatlong term, five, seven year
commitment, because we're now atthe whim of each legislative
session to decide how much moneyschools are going to get for a
portion.
Mike Journee (26:15):
Yeah. And on top of that, we also have this
concept of Micheal FTEs, andfunded FTEs, where some
districts use bonds and leviesto pay a little bit extra to get
more educators in the classroom,or to pay a little bit more to
those that they already have. Soit just becomes this really
complex mix of things. Theequity situation is a really
(26:37):
important one that you bring upa district that's well to do,
and taxpayers are willing topass bonds or levies, then
oftentimes those educators arein better shape financially than
they would be in a less affluentdistrict.
Jason McKinley (26:52):
Yeah, Mike, you made a great point, and you we
can show that prior to thecareer ladder, Idaho has always
been a Have and Have Not statethose districts that have levies
and use those funds to pay theirstaff pay more and their
recruitment retention rates arebetter than those districts that
only pay what the state pays. AsI tell in bargaining trainings,
(27:14):
I say, if you only get paidexactly what the state pays you,
you are tied for the worstpaying district in state.
There's no other way to look atit. But I mean, what is of
interest to the taxpayer or toanybody who follows this is that
prior to the career ladder, whenthe legislature stopped
adequately funding theprogressive index model and each
(27:36):
year just decided how much moneyto put into the salary schedule,
we saw this dramatic rise in theamount of local funds that were
used to fund salary schedules.
More and more scarce resourcesfrom school districts had to be
used to pay their staff. Whenthe career ladder came into
being in law, we saw a decrease,and it's been a continual
(27:59):
decrease in the percentage oflocal funds used to fund salary
schedules. So we had districtsthat were funding for salary
schedules at 35% out of localfunds in 2011 2012 that are now
at 10% or 8% which allows thedistricts to do other things
with those monies. And one ofthe things that has been really,
(28:22):
I think, missed by a lot ofpeople in this state is that a
lot of those monies that we'regoing to our Certified staff
have started going to ourclassified staff. It's you're
not going to find people to workfor 725, an hour. And so we've
seen this sharp increase in thelocal funds that are going to
our classified staff, and it'syou pick your district. I can't
(28:44):
think of a district that sayswe've got all the classified
staff we need. If thispredictability is gone, my
concern is that we're back toputting a much more difficult
burden on local school districtsto have levies to use those
scarce funds. I don't know whatit's a difficult decision at a
(29:05):
local level. Do we then start reemphasizing these monies back
towards our certified torecruit, retain our certified?
If so, we're going to lose ourclassified or they're not going
to work for those poor wages.
And so you've, I think you'vehit a really big challenge with
the system we find ourselves inmoving forward.
Mike Journee (29:25):
Yeah, you know, we often talk about the chronic
underfunding of public educationin the state that's been going
on for decades. And we talkabout how those bonds and levies
are part of the way thisdistrict backfill, and if they
can't pass those bonds andlevies, then they have a really
hard time. This sounds like MattCompton. It sounds like this is
just gonna complicate that evenmore and bring in the I'm just
(29:49):
gonna use the word ridiculouspolitics that we find around
education at the state housethese days. Yeah,
Unknown (29:56):
absolutely. You bring up the chronic underfunding of
education and. One of thereasons that it was so critical
that the career ladder beimplemented is that the state
needed to find a morecompetitive way to compensate
educators with the competingstates around us, whereas
Wyoming, Washington, Oregon,they're all paying educators
significantly more than Idaho.
So in a way to create thatcompetition, they thought, well,
(30:19):
let's create the career ladder,but they also built in a
tremendous amount ofaccountability into the career
ladder, different measurementsgrowth measurements that
educators need to demonstrate inorder to qualify for different
types of increases for salaryand benefits. So as the career
ladder made more money flow todistricts that also increased to
(30:41):
the complex complications ofgetting money to specific
educators based on which cohortthey were part of, or how many
years of service, or whether ornot they completed the master
educator premium. There were alot of hoops that folks needed
to jump through. So we created alot more predictability with the
career ladder. But as we'vediscussed, other states around
(31:04):
us have continued to makeinvestments in education and the
chronic underfunding ofeducation, these historic
investments over the last decadeinto school funding really has
been historic and noteworthy,and we are still chronically
underfunded. When it comes toIdaho education, you can look at
our classrooms and ourdilapidated buildings. You can
(31:24):
look at the pipeline report thatthe State Board of Education
just released that found thatadministrators and educators and
the business community all saythat compensating educators is
one of the top three issues sothat we have highly qualified
educators in the state so thatwe're prepared to educate
students regardless of of theirzip code. And so we really are
(31:46):
going into some gray territory,without any kind of
predictability, and with J factnow Joint Finance and
appropriations committee at thelegislature arguing over how
best to take that 5% and overlayit over salaries and benefits
for educators, and what doesthat look like for other state
(32:07):
employees? The debate is, shouldwe only give $1.55 an hour to
everybody? And I truly don'tknow how you would qualify that
$1.55 per educator across theboard, districts would see the
that increase go out, but it isstill extremely difficult to
qualify and predict what thatmoney would look like in
(32:28):
preparation for negotiations.
Now, if I was an educator and Isettled down in the community,
let's use the example likelapway, I want to teach in a
rural district, and I'm going togive 567, years of my career to
that in order for me to plantroots in that community, I have
to be able to make enough moneyto live in that community, and
(32:48):
that starting teacher salary inIdaho, even with the career
ladder out over the last handfulof years, has still placed the
starting teacher salary near theBottom of the nation, I still
think we're ranked 50th when itcomes to starting teacher
salary, and even in averageteacher salary, we're buried
somewhere near the bottom. Andso even after 10 years of
(33:10):
investment in the career ladder,there's a lot more work that
needs to be done in order for usto attract and retain highly
qualified teachers to be in theclassrooms with these incredibly
important natural resources ofIdaho students.
Mike Journee (33:26):
Yeah, that's right, but just quickly honor to
remind our listeners that thatto follow the latest news on
public education. You can followIda reporter. You go to
idahoea.org, backslash reporter,or go over to the News tab at
the top of the navigation andfind reporter there, as well as
this podcast. So Jason, you knowas as a Region Director for in
(33:49):
region two up in the MoscowLewiston area, this
unpredictability of injectingState House politics into the
determination about allocatingfunds for teacher salaries
creates a whole different levelof complexity and challenge for
(34:09):
locals as they're beginning toprepare for bargaining for their
salaries, as we mentioned, thecareer ladder that and the local
salary schedule have not had tomatch up in recent years, but it
did provide some predictability.
Vocals could understand how muchmoney districts were going to be
given with the intent of itbeing spent on salaries. Wasn't
(34:31):
always spent on salaries, butnow that predictability is going
out the window, that's going tocomplicate contract negotiations
all across the state internet.
Unknown (34:43):
Yeah, as they say, the devil is in the details. And
you're right, the highest payingsalary in the career ladder as
an advanced professional five Ithink, is roughly $68,000 a
year. I don't have a district inmy region that doesn't pay more
than several. Will pay over$80,000 a year. But as that
(35:04):
apportionment flows to a schooldistrict, while one can look at
the school funding and say, it'sincredibly complicated, once you
really dig into it, it's notthat complicated, and it's
predictable, and thepredictability and the, if you
will, comfort of how we fundschools in Idaho, been at the
(35:27):
whims of the legislature. It hasbeen a commitment of the
legislature, a commitment of thestate that was predictable. And
now that we are moving tosomething that we don't know,
what exactly it's going to looklike, $1.50 per hour per
employee, or how are they goingto add 5% to the current model?
(35:48):
Creates some unpredictabilityand some difficulty in planning
for the future. And if you'rehaving difficulty planning for
the future, it's really hard tobargain for the future, I would
say, in every instance I'mfamiliar with negotiations, the
negotiations have always erredon a more conservative side in a
(36:11):
financial settlement, and thatwas with predictability and
stability. Withunpredictability. I'm not so
sure that districts are going tobe real comfortable with making
the kinds of commitments they'vemade in the past. And I look at
a district that does follow thecareer ladder as its salary
schedule, if that model iscodified but not funded as it
(36:38):
has been, how do they nowdetermine what they're going to
pay people? That's been theirmethodology. This cell says this
is what you get paid. That cellis no longer funded like that.
That cell number doesn't change.
What do they do in some of ourrural districts, the
(36:59):
superintendent is thesuperintendent, maybe sometimes
durbs, bus chaperones. You canjust think of all of the hats
some of these folks have towear. The Business Manager is
not a CPA and is not a schoolfinance expert. This is really
going to be a struggle for this.
I am deeply concerned about themechanics of how these monies
(37:23):
are going to flow to districtsfor their apportionment to be
able to determine this is whatwe look like for next year based
upon our current staffing. Ifthat's not really clear,
abundantly predictable, it'sgoing to make bargaining and
salary discussions incrediblydifficult and
Micah, that brings up somethingthat has been an issue over the
(37:44):
last handful of years. When itcomes to initiatives from the
legislature, we can look at thewhat was it this $6,500
investment that went into eachrung of the career ladder that
was supposed to like ongoing$6,500 increase for salaries now
that goes into every rung of thecareer ladder, but what some
(38:07):
districts do is, you know, theyhave to hire above and beyond
what the number of Support UnitsThe state provides funding for,
meaning that they need to havemore educators. They need to
have more ESPs in the classroom.
They need more janitorialservices. Whatever it is that
their school district needs outor exceeds or differentiates
itself from what the state isgoing to make as an allocation
(38:29):
so that takes away a lot of thelocal control for a school
district to build and develop adistrict that reflects their
community. If the chronicunderfunding continues, those
decisions at the bargaining comeup table come down to do we
compensate our educators so thatwe can give them a fair, livable
wage in a community and retainthem for next year? Or do we
take those resources and investthem into something else in our
(38:52):
district? Those are the harddecisions that the
administrators and the folks atthe bargaining table are going
to have to make with this newchaos that comes with this new
way of investing in the careerladder.
Mike Journee (39:07):
So Matt, what are you hearing at the State House
about, if there's any discussionabout some kind of a change, a
fix that will create morepredictability, is
Superintendent Critchfield orthe governor, or anyone
concerned about this in the waythat we are,
Unknown (39:22):
I think that folks are trying to get through this
legislative session withoutopening up too many code
sections. In order to makesubstantive changes to the
career ladder, you would have togo into code, and you would have
to add additional monies to eachof those wrongs. And jfac, the
Joint Finance and appropriationscommittee would actually have to
(39:43):
fund it. We don't have a veryfriendly legislature this year.
We're arguing over a number ofissues, first and foremost being
vouchers. The first voucher billthat comes out had a two $50
million price tag on it. Allothers have no less than $50
million Yeah. And so thelegislature is also struggling
between, are we going to make aninvestment in the education
(40:05):
system that we'reconstitutionally bound to fund,
which is the public schoolsystems, or are we going to fund
a secondary form of privateschools through a voucher
system, which would decrease theamount of financial resources
that could go to districts thatcould continue the investments
in schools that would addressthat chronic underfunding. I
think the legislature right nowis less focused on, how are we
(40:29):
going to compensate the currentpublic education teachers that
we have in our schools, andoverwhelmingly focused on, how
do we establish a secondary formof education that doesn't
comport with our constitutionthrough a voucher program,
Mike Journee (40:44):
a secondary system that they've created self
fulfilling prophecy for by thischronic underfunding. When they
talk about underperformingpublic schools and their lack of
proper funding for them, thethey're creating that self
fulfillment problems. That's
Unknown (40:57):
right, Mike and you, we mentioned that the amount of
kind of accountability that's inthe career ladder, the
measurements that all of theeducators must meet in order to
qualify for any kind of a raiseor advancement do they want to
move along in their career path?
You know, there's a lot ofaccountability built into the
career ladder we're discussingnow. You know, in these voucher
schemes, sending out money toschools and the to the, you
(41:18):
know, 10s of millions of dollarswith no accountability. They
don't have to be qualified, theydon't have to be certified, they
don't even have to havebackground checks. And this
money will go out in to schoolsin the form of vouchers and
private and parochial schools,while traditional public schools
will continue to see the chronicunderfunding. They will see less
(41:39):
money because of vouchers, andit will just continue to
exacerbate our ability toattract and retain highly
qualified educators in Idaho,yeah, and
Mike Journee (41:51):
I guess one quick extra point around the state
house for the side of this iswhat this every year, there's
always horse trading thathappens, right? There's always
something that gets caught up inthe last minute negotiations
around a bill that leadershiplaunch, or something like that.
I could easily see educatorsalaries getting tied up into
(42:13):
those kind of negotiations, um,at the last minute, which the
politics at the State Houseright now, just it screams that
kind of hostage taking aroundthis don't you agree 100% I
Unknown (42:24):
think that we will likely see towards the end of
the legislative session, somekind of Sophie's choice between
funding vouchers, 50 to $100million with no accountability
in one hand, or a significantIncrease in salaries and
benefits as sort of the takeyour medicine and enjoy this.
(42:45):
You'll get both vouchers andincreased funding. That's what
happened in Utah over the lastcouple of legislative sessions
where the governor and thelegislatures pre negotiated a
significant increase in educatorsalaries along with a voucher
scheme. We've seen that inArizona, in Oklahoma, in Florida
(43:07):
and other states where vouchershave taken over their budgets,
but we've seen the traditionalpublic schools suffer, and so
that's essentially a closingcourse we're on during this
session, and it will be up to usfor our voices to communicate
with lawmakers, why continuedinvestment in our traditional
public schools right now issomething that's absolutely
(43:28):
critical, absolutely not
Mike Journee (43:32):
well. Jason, Matt, any last thoughts about this
before we wrap up for thissession,
Unknown (43:38):
I would just reiterate something I mentioned earlier is
that those districts that dofollow the career ladder as
their salary schedule, dollarfor dollar, this move, if it's
not done correctly, if it's notdone with predictability, could
be a real disaster for them,because they they may not have a
clear picture of how they aregoing to aid people at the local
(44:00):
level, the model that they haveused for the last 10 years will
no longer be applicable to theway they're funded, and that
could be a huge problem at thelocal level.
Mike, I think this conversationdemonstrates that there's still
time in this session for thelegislature to reevaluate how
they want to approach salariesand benefits for educators. How
(44:21):
you can differentiate thesefolks from other state
employees? They've never beentreated treated the same in the
past. Everything is in separatecode. I think that the
legislature really should try tomake fewer significant and jerky
policy decisions thislegislative session that will
(44:42):
cause a lot of disruption andhavoc. We've had a lot of that
over the last handful of years,and I think that you know any
level of stability that thelegislature can provide when it
comes to ensuring educators thatwhen they get to the bargaining
table, that there will besomething to go towards. Their
paycheck at the end of the year,some increase in compensation is
(45:04):
going to be absolutely critical.
Yeah.
Mike Journee (45:06):
And so, you know, I would, I would expect, Jason,
you would recommend that thatlocal union presidents and their
bargaining teams get on the balland kind of understand what's
going on and start working withtheir Region Director around
this as soon as they possiblycan. Of course, we don't know
what we don't know until thelegislature adjourns, but locals
can do a little bit of prep inadvance and get a better
(45:27):
understanding of what's comingtheir way so that they're a
little bit better prepared forwhatever does come their way.
Unknown (45:33):
Absolutely, this is we talk about your salary schedule
and what you negotiate at thelocal level. These are your
lifetime earnings. This is areflection of the values of your
local association, of yourdistrict, of your community, and
it's really big stuff, and itmakes a difference in your
students lives. And so, yeah,absolutely, it's time to get
engaged and be a part of aproactive solution, as opposed
(45:58):
to just out at the last minute.
This doesn't work very well.
Mike Journee (46:03):
Welcome. Thank you for having this conversation
with me. Very complex, verychallenging issue in front of
us, something that I think ourmembers are going to want to
know more about as we go throughthis session. Jason McKinley,
Matt Compton, thanks for joiningus. Thank you for listening to
this episode of the IAEAreporter podcast, and thanks to
(46:25):
IEA, Jason McKinley, MattCompton and Chris Perry for
joining us. Please watch forupdates about new episodes on
IAEA social media channels orsign up to receive IA reporter
email updates on ourwebsite@idahoea.org, I'm Mike
Journee, and as always, I hopeyou join me in thanking Idaho's
public school educators foreverything they do for our State
(46:46):
students, families and publicschools. You
I welcome to the IAEA reporter podcast, a regular
(00:15):
discussion about the news andevents important to Idaho
Education Association membersand those who value public
education, IAEA members arepublic school educators from all
over the state and members ofthe largest union in Idaho.
They're Idaho's most importanteducation experts, and they use
their influence to fight for afree, quality and equitable
public education for everystudent in the state. I'm Mike
(00:38):
Journee, communications directorat DIA and I'll be your host for
this episode. Today, we'lldiscuss the expiration of the
Idaho educator career ladder,the funding framework the Idaho
legislature has used for 10years to provide predictable
funding and raises to educatorsin Idaho. We'll talk with IEA
region director Jason McKinley,who works in ieas region two, in
(00:58):
the Lewiston Moscow area, and IAAssociate Executive Director
Matt Compton about whatchallenges these changes may
mean for Educator contractnegotiations and teacher pay.
But first a quick summary ofwhat happened this week during
the 2025 Idaho legislature withIaaS political director Chris
Perry. Chris Perry, thank youfor joining us for this quick
(01:21):
roundup of the week at thelegislature. You know, it's
things are starting to pick up alittle bit. The pace is picking
up. We're seeing more bills andthe education committees come
through. But before we talkabout legislation, I wanted to
talk about the 2025, lobby daythat we had earlier this week,
and every 200 members fromaround the state, came to Idaho
(01:43):
or came to Boise and and lobbiedthe legislature, talked to
legislature about about thingsthat are important, things that
are on their minds. It's alwaysa great opportunity to really
get into the space of thislegislature and let people know
what's going on in
Chris Parri (01:58):
classroom. Yeah, it was, I think it was a huge
success this year. It was a lotof fun. We had a panel for the
first time, I think at leastsince I've worked here. It was
Quinn Perry from the Out ofSchool Boards Association, Paula
Keller from Idaho business foreducation, and Heather Williams
from the Idaho Rural SchoolsAssociation. And then our guest
keynote speaker also joined thepanel, and that was former
(02:21):
representative Joel John fromArizona. He cast one of the key
votes in favor of theiruniversal ESA program down
there. And to quote him, ifthere was one vote he could take
back, it would be that one. Soit was a pretty cool group of
people. Definitely a lot of antivoucher vibes in the room for
(02:41):
the dinner for sure. Then thefollowing day, got up bright and
early, and a bunch of oureducators walked over the
building and had meetingsthroughout the day. And all of
the feedback I've gotten thisweek from legislators I've been
meeting with has been prettystellar, that teachers were
pretty focused on students,which is, I think, a smart,
smart way to approach thefunding problems that we see
(03:02):
that the legislature isresponsible for, and pointing
out the actual impacts it has onstudents. So all in all, just
really rad. They did such a goodjob. I'm so happy that day
happened, because I thinkeverybody in the building needed
some grounding in reality, andour teachers always do that.
Mike Journee (03:19):
Yeah, Joel, John was a really great counterpoint
to all this stuff we've beenhearing about how great the
voucher bill in Arizona is. It'sbeing held up as a model all
across the country, not justhere, but here as well as the
model legislation. It's thelegislation everybody wants to
get to who wants vouchers. Andhe really showed that this is
(03:40):
the terrible ideas at poorArizona. Their budget deficits
are exploding as a result of it,and it's Once that initial
modest voucher gets passed, itshows how quickly those things
mushroom and become giantprograms and separate school
programs from the public schoolssystem. So he was really great
(04:02):
counterpoint to that messaging.
And then, of course, another keypart of Lobby Day. This year, we
held a press conference in themiddle of Lobby Day calling on
lawmakers to reject vouchers.
What was so interesting aboutthis press conference was we had
representatives of the IdahoSchool Board Association. We had
representatives of the IdahoSchool Administrators
Association, and, of course,representatives from the Idaho
(04:25):
Education Association, theteachers union, standing in
unity against voucher schemesand telling lawmakers This is
bad. They talked about theimpacts on rural schools. They
talked about the lack ofaccountability that vouchers
often have for how that money isspent and how those tax dollars
spent. And then, of course, oneof our members, Melissa Farrow,
(04:47):
did a great job of talkingabout, what are we missing out
on by not fully funding ourpublic schools and instead
creating this separate schoolsystem with vouchers? So it was
a really great event, reallywell attended by the media. Lots
of coverage. Page, and I'll justput this quick plug in before we
talk about this. The folks cango to Idaho, ea.org, backslash
reporter, and read about all ofthese events that happened this
(05:08):
week. We got lots of coveragethat are going to be in our
newsletter this week. But it wasreally great event. I thought,
Chris, don't you?
Unknown (05:15):
Yeah, that was awesome.
It was great to see. And youknow, all the teachers and folks
waving signs and stuff behindthe speakers. I think was really
cool. The speakers just did anamazing job. Like that. Really
got me fired up and energized mein a week that, as we'll talk
about, I definitely needed alittle bit of energy for. But
yeah, it was really great to seeit.
Mike Journee (05:33):
So lava day was great. Part of the focus of the
press conference was we knew twovoucher bills were tending to be
introduced this week in thelegislature. And of course, that
did happen on Wednesday to kindof we're going to call them
competing voucher bills for thegovernor's attention. And one of
them was brought forward by arepresentative, Wendy Horman,
(05:56):
out of Idaho, falls it's thebill She's long promised. It's a
tax credit that, frankly, hasvery little accountability in
there about how those taxdollars are going to be spent
and that kind of thing. And thenthe second bill from Senator
Dave Lent, who is chairman ofthe Senate Education Committee,
who brought forward an expansionof the empowering parents grant
program as a voucher bill. Talkus to really quickly, just a
(06:19):
little bit about those twobills, and kind of what we see
going forward with those twopieces of legislation.
Unknown (06:25):
So yeah, her legislation, ostensibly, it's a
tax credit that's capped at $50million I think there was some
good discussion in the committeeabout like, so how do you cap a
tax credit? Essentially, whatyou're doing is saying, Okay,
we'll reimburse your tuitioncosts up to five grand, and
essentially you float thetuition cost to say your tuition
(06:48):
is 15 grand. Pay. Pay 15 grand.
Say you're a low income family,working family. You pay 15 grand
up front to a school, then youjust hope and pray that the
government doesn't run out ofmoney before they reimburse you
for that cost. No family isactually going to take that
risk. So when they say this isfor the the families who need it
the most, that's completelywrong. And of course, there's no
(07:09):
real accountability in this billat all. There was a lot of kind
of side long glances at thephilosophy of accountability,
like, well, you know, privateschools regulate themselves,
right? Yeah,
Mike Journee (07:22):
so we that's a bill we expected from her, but
I'll be honest, I wasn'texpecting Senator lent to bring
forward a bill to expand theempowering parents program. That
was an interesting twist for me.
I wasn't paying close attention.
Maybe you knew about it, butthat bill expands that program
by $20 million to to be 50million. Both numbers right in
line with the number that thegovernor mentioned during his
(07:43):
stay the state address aboutwhatever voucher program he
would support. So talk a littlebit about that bill, if you
would. Senator
Unknown (07:49):
Len, longtime friend, I think, to IEA, and I think when
the governor said we need $50million for a school choice
program, Senator Len said, Well,the best person to write this is
a long time critic of of theseprograms, someone who's done
research on it, so I think he'sbeing really thoughtful in the
way he constructs this program.
I don't think, I mean, we don'tagree with it, right? We we
(08:10):
don't think that any of theseprograms are, can be fair,
responsible, accountable andtransparent, as the governor
outlined, kind of inherently,but Lent is trying to construct
a completely, kind of newversion of these. And to his
credit, at least at the youknow, in the critique ahead of
the previous legislation aboutthe tax credit piece, he's
(08:33):
constructing it as an educationsavings account that would, that
would actually go to familiesbelow, mostly below $80,000 of
income. 75% of the bill will goto people who families who make
less than 60 grand. So he'stargeting low income folks with
the bill, I think, in directcontrast to the the rhetoric you
(08:53):
hear on the House side, thatbill will not be going to low
income folks, Lentz would andthen he's also added a kind of
suite of accountability metricson here that are, I think,
extremely popular amongstvoters, things like background
checks for employees that haveunsupervised contact with
students. I think that's apretty no brainer, like pretty
(09:14):
big no brainer, just protectkids, right? Standardized tests
so you can actually see what thereturn on investment is for
taxpayers maintain accurateenrollment data. Again, pretty
low bar compliance with statelaws related to special
education, non discriminationand parental rights. Again, if
you're putting this muchlegislative activity into
schools with taxpayer funds,doesn't make sense to just
(09:38):
create a huge loophole for otherschools that might be funded by
taxpayers,
Mike Journee (09:44):
and all the things that you just mentioned, Chris
are things that public schoolsdo already right? They're things
that are part of the workingmodel of public schools and
making sure that those folks whoare getting public dollars for
private school tuition should beheld to the same account.
Unknown (09:59):
He's kind. Calling the bluff on the competition piece,
I think because in a lot of thepro voucher people will be like,
well, this, you know, this makespublic schools have to compete
for students against privateschools, right? And the obvious
thing there is, it's notcompetition if you're playing by
completely different sets ofrules. So what Senator Lent is
(10:20):
doing is trying to give some ofthose rules also to the private
schools that would be gettingtaxpayer funds here to say,
Okay, if you want to compete,then here's how you're going to
compete. It's going to be a fairplaying field, right? So again,
we are not a fan of thislegislation. I think that
Senator Len has put a lot ofthought into it, and he's been
very transparent, I think, witheducators about this, saying,
(10:40):
essentially, the governor sayshe wants a $50 million school
choice program, and you caneither have representative
hormones version, or you canhave a version written by
someone who cares about publicschools deeply and has put a lot
of thought into this stuff.
We're on a good spot here, but Ithink Senator land has been a
really honest broker in theseconversations. Well, we watch
Mike Journee (11:01):
them, both of those bills as they go forward.
We probably expect a publichearing on both of them next
week as I'm taping this. This isFriday, so next week, it will
probably hear something aboutpublic hearings on both of
those, both bills going forwardand really quickly too,
Unknown (11:14):
if you want to take action on those bills. So
Senator Lenz version will be inSenate Education and then
representative hormones bill,which I think is probably the
one I would prioritize if youwere going to choose one to send
a bunch of emails and lettersand stuff. Representative
hormones legislation will be inthe house Revenue and Taxation
Committee sometime next week, sotry and get on the horn and
(11:37):
contact senators andrepresentatives on those
committees.
Mike Journee (11:41):
So Chris, we're also going to be putting
together an email option forfolks who want to to sound off
on these bills. If they go toidahoea.org and look at the
story about the legislation thisweek, there will be a link to a
tool in there that folks can dothat's an option for folks and
and members and others. Might begetting a text inviting them to
(12:01):
send emails around thislegislation. So Chris, we got
just a couple of minutes left. Iwant to talk really quickly
about the couple of other billsthat came forward this week.
Also on Wednesday, the HouseEducation Committee sent
representative Ted hill. Theybrought forward a rework of his
flag bill that was introducedlast week and endorsed by the
House Education Committee. Thereare a lot of questions about
(12:23):
that bill, in spite of the factthat the committee passed it
with a do pass recommendation tothe floor. It looks like
representative Hill is trying toanswer some of those questions.
I'm not sure if he succeeded ornot, but he reintroduced the
bill anyway. We think this is abill that's really targeted at
the pride flag, trying to keeppride flags out of classrooms,
something that our members havelong said is a really important
(12:47):
tool for making sure studentsfeel welcome and know that
they're in a safe place in aclassroom. Any thoughts about
this legislation? Yeah,
Unknown (12:55):
I think pride flags were a big one. I you know
representative mentioned the GADflag, that don't trade on me
flag, other kind of flags likethat. So it encompasses a whole
bunch of different types ofspeech for teachers and yeah, so
the committee sent it to thefloor with a do pass
recommendation, but he changedit to be more deleterious to the
(13:17):
First Amendment a little bithere. So and he added a piece
that you can also not displayflags of quote, unquote, hostile
nations. So, you know, in theoriginal bill, there was a carve
out that said, okay, yeah, likeyou're teaching history,
geography, whatever, yeah, youcan show flags of nations.
That's like, part of your normalcurriculum. That makes tons of
(13:40):
sense, right? That's prettycommon sense that even if the
rest of the bill isn't but yeah,so he changed it to, quote,
unquote, hostile nations.
Determining what a hostilenation is is a fascinating
discussion to get into. But youknow, as has been pointed out by
the bill sponsor, even theUnited States hasn't officially
declared war since World WarTwo. So, you know, including
like Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam,all of that never actually
(14:03):
declared war. So instead, islegislation asks a the school
board to figure out who thehostile nations are and develop
a flag policy that deletes thoseso now we have school boards
wading into foreign policy.
Apparently, you can imagine howinteresting that could possibly
(14:24):
get. So obviously, this is aserious BILL Right. Like, I
think that it's easy, I think tolaugh at this legislation
because of how ridiculous it isand like, how strange it is to
hear people saying, we need toconstrain speech to protect
liberty, right? That'sOrwellian, right? But the
(14:48):
obvious targets here are LGBTstudents, and there are a whole
bunch of other kind ofcurricular activities and
teacher activities that are justkind of taking the strays here,
right? Like there's always. Uh,collateral damage, and obviously
the felt direct damage to LGBTstudents and their families when
this kind of stuff goes through.
So a ridiculous bill, butsomeone to still take seriously
(15:11):
and fight back against. So weexpect that on the floor at some
points, well, they just
Mike Journee (15:17):
printed it. That's all they did yesterday. So
there'll be another publichearing in that committee about
this new legislation. Well, oneof the quick bill that I want to
touch on was Chris Mathias, arepresentative out of Boise, and
also a member of the HouseEducation Committee, brought
forward a bill about bullying.
It's a bill that he ran lastyear that died narrowly on the
House floor, but he brought itback again this year and just
got the endorsement of the HouseEducation Committee. They're
(15:40):
going to have a public hearingabout it. And again, this is
legislation that would requireschool district to both notify
parents of a bullying incident,the parents both of the victim
of the bullying and also of theaggressor of the bullying. We'll
see where this goes, and ithasn't done well in the past. In
previous years, I guess theHouse members last year felt it
was an overreach in some ways.
(16:03):
So anyway, that bill is comingforward, and we'll be keeping an
eye on that too.
Unknown (16:07):
Yeah. I mean, it's ironic, kind of talking about
representative Mathias bill asoverreach compared to the bill
we were just talking about.
Again, it is amazing, thescrutiny applied to
Representative Mathias bill,which is just letting parents
know that their kid is either abully or a victim of bullying.
This is not overreach, and lastyear's version was not overreach
(16:30):
either. So he kind of pared itdown a little bit, making sure
that the only notification thatwould be required is when the
incident rises to the level ofsuspension. So he's doing his
best trying to meet thesestandards. But again, we're
running into this kind ofpartisan thing. Represent
Mathias is a Democrat, representTed Hill is a Republican. And
you can kind of see the scrutinyand standards applied to the
(16:53):
minorities legislation is a lothigher than that of the majority
party, which I think is a reallydestructive dynamic when it
comes to actually passing goodpolicy. So anyways, it's a good
bill. We support this bill.
Representative Matthias has beenreally thoughtful in trying to
get bipartisan support for this,and it very narrowly died last
(17:14):
year. So he's doing his besthere, and I think it's really
admirable.
Mike Journee (17:19):
Well, we'll keep an eye on Bill, like I said, and
anything else that comes up herethis next week as well. So Chris
Perry, thank you for this quickrundown of the week, and good
luck at the steakhouse. Thanks,man. Appreciate
it. Next up on the Iowa reporterpodcast, the expiration of the
(17:40):
Idaho career ladder, theframework long used by the
legislature to fund educatorsalaries in the state. This
planned expiration poseschallenging problems for IA
locals as they look to theircontract negotiations this
spring, IAEA region directorJason McKinley and IAEA
Executive Associate ExecutiveDirector Matt Compton discuss
how educator pay could beimpacted. Well. Jason McKinley,
(18:06):
Matt Compton, thank you forjoining us for this edition of
the IE report podcast. And youknow, we're going to tackle a
meaty topic today. We're goingto talk about changes to Idaho's
educator career ladder and thethe the framework that the
lawmakers use to allocate moneyfor teacher salaries to the
(18:27):
school districts. In some ways,it was an intentional change
that that was always intended tohappen with the implementation
of the career ladder back in2015 but it could create some
challenges for us. Matt Hoffman,give us a little bit of a look
at what exactly is the careerladder and how is it going to
change in the next year or so?
Yeah, for
Unknown (18:50):
sure, the career ladder initially was placed into code
in 2015 this was my secondlegislative session with the
IAEA. When it was negotiated, itwas an extremely contentious
legislative fight betweenlawmakers and educators and
administrators. Originally, thesystem that they came up for the
career ladder only had tworungs. It had a $40,000 starting
(19:15):
teacher salary rung, and thatmid tier would be a $50,000 and
then they came up with somethingthat was called the master
educator premium, which was aset of a whole bunch of hoops
and things that educators had tojump through. They had to create
a portfolio demonstrating all ofthe work that they've done over
the past three years in theirclassroom. They demonstrate that
(19:36):
to the administrators, if theypass some sort of rubric
examination, then they wouldqualify for that master educator
premium, which was additionalresources that was supposed to
go to the educator. A couple ofyears later, when Governor
little is elected, he sees thatthe career ladder the first five
years of implementation wasabout to expire and in 2018 And
(20:00):
put in an additional rung thecareer ladder, so that the top
tier was now going to be $60,000so you have a 40, a 50 and a
$60,000 tier for the careerladder. And over the last
handful of years, thelegislature has been dumping 10s
of millions dollars intosalaries and benefits based on
the formulaic outlay of thecareer ladder. These were things
(20:24):
that were all decided, both in2015 and 2018 how much money was
going to be invested intosalaries for educators based on
the total number of teachers,and this was going to be a clean
and easy way for us to find waysto compensate educators but
maintain local control fornegotiations at home. So this
(20:45):
year, what we're findingourselves is that the career
ladder, just like in 2016 isexpiring, meaning there are no
longer large tranches of moneythat are going into the career
ladder or salaries from thelegislature. Instead, now
they're looking at, how do theyadjust salaries and benefits for
educators based on a percentagein the governor's state of the
(21:08):
state? He said, I'd like for usto look at 5% cost of living
increases for all Idahoemployees, which would include
teachers. Right now, what jfacis trying to figure out is, how
do they take a career ladderformula where salaries and
benefits are placed upon a gridand within cohorts and cells,
(21:28):
and how do you increase each ofthose by 5% what does that look
like when that money goes out tothe school districts in
preparation for bargaining,essentially right now in the
second week of The legislativesession, that's where we find
ourselves in discussing thecareer ladder.
Mike Journee (21:45):
So essentially, what we're saying here is that
this framework, that for thepast 10 years the legislature
has been investing in kind of anautomatic investment in teacher
salaries over that period, ischanging, and now it's going to
be a little bit more part of thepolitical process each session
that the legislature in town. Isthat correct?
Matt Compton (22:07):
I think that's a very good way to describe it.
With a career ladder. You know,year over year, we could roughly
estimate how much money wasgoing into salaries and benefits
based on the number ofeducators, the number of
students, we knew how manysupport units we were going to
have unless we knew how muchmoney was going out to
districts, they're going to makechanges to how much money and
(22:28):
how that money goes out todistricts. That's going to be
really what complicatesnegotiations going into this
year. And
Mike Journee (22:36):
Jason, you know, we asked you to be part of this
conversation, because you're oneof the most important experts
around on school districtfinancing and the war. It's a
complex issue all the way fromthe state level down into the
school district level. From whatI understand, school districts
aren't expected to necessarilymatch the career ladder in their
salary schedules. Salaryschedules are set at the local
(22:58):
level, and reaching here. That'skind of created some challenges
with Horace, with our members,with some of the investments
that they've been making oncareer salaries, it's been
confusion, I think, among someof our members. Can you talk a
little bit about how that worksat the local level, and how they
set salaries of local level, andhow that's related to the career
ladder for us?
Unknown (23:19):
Mr. Mike, and you've touched on something that really
it's been a 10 year process thatwe still haven't gotten
everybody at the same level ofunderstanding, is that the
career ladder is a phrase thatis used as part of our salary
based apportionment model forpeople to understand the way
salary based apportionment worksin Idaho really hasn't changed
(23:41):
since 1994 the crew ladder madea change from what's called a
Progress Index to arbitrarynumbers, and unfortunately, what
happened in 2015 is there aredistricts that have
traditionally and continue toonly pay as the state pays. And
when you had a progressive indexthat made equity in a
(24:03):
predictable salary schedule. Ithad 13 vertical steps, seven
horizontal columns. And when thecareer ladder team in the place
districts that moved to that, wehad local associations buy into
it. The problem with that wasthere's no equity in the career
ladder allocation. We had caseswhere over a five year period,
one accrual letter rungs may goup by $5,000 where another rung
(24:28):
might go up by $850 there's noequity in that. When these
monies come to the local level,there was always a perception if
you were a p3 and the p3 valuewas $45,000 that's what the
State gave to pay you, andthat's what you would be paid.
That's what you were, quote,unquote word, the reality of
which is that number getscombined with all the other
(24:51):
numbers in your district, andrun through a formula, and you
get what's called an averagesalary. But you take all the
employees in the district,they've got one day of teaching
or. 100 years of teaching, andyou get the exact same dollar
amount that is put into theformula for every teacher. It's
very typical today that theaverage salary in the district
is $50,000 or maybe a littlebetter than $50,000 in some
(25:14):
districts, every teacher wherethey been teaching one day or
one minute, that's how muchthey're actually generating. But
it gets put through a formula,and that's your total
apportionment. The state, inmoving away from, as Matt
described, these continuingpockets of money, has put us
into a pre 2015 situation fordistricts where their salary
(25:38):
based apportionment is no longerpredictable, ladder gave
predictability. It gave acommitment, and it was for lack
of better terms, it was a safe asafe way to plan ahead for
school districts, I think ofsome of the districts like
ponderae comes to mind, wherethey did some very progressive
things based upon the commitmentthe state made with the career
(26:01):
ladder, they could not make thatlong term, five, seven year
commitment, because we're now atthe whim of each legislative
session to decide how much moneyschools are going to get for a
portion.
Mike Journee (26:15):
Yeah. And on top of that, we also have this
concept of Micheal FTEs, andfunded FTEs, where some
districts use bonds and leviesto pay a little bit extra to get
more educators in the classroom,or to pay a little bit more to
those that they already have. Soit just becomes this really
complex mix of things. Theequity situation is a really
(26:37):
important one that you bring upa district that's well to do,
and taxpayers are willing topass bonds or levies, then
oftentimes those educators arein better shape financially than
they would be in a less affluentdistrict.
Jason McKinley (26:52):
Yeah, Mike, you made a great point, and you we
can show that prior to thecareer ladder, Idaho has always
been a Have and Have Not statethose districts that have levies
and use those funds to pay theirstaff pay more and their
recruitment retention rates arebetter than those districts that
only pay what the state pays. AsI tell in bargaining trainings,
(27:14):
I say, if you only get paidexactly what the state pays you,
you are tied for the worstpaying district in state.
There's no other way to look atit. But I mean, what is of
interest to the taxpayer or toanybody who follows this is that
prior to the career ladder, whenthe legislature stopped
adequately funding theprogressive index model and each
(27:36):
year just decided how much moneyto put into the salary schedule,
we saw this dramatic rise in theamount of local funds that were
used to fund salary schedules.
More and more scarce resourcesfrom school districts had to be
used to pay their staff. Whenthe career ladder came into
being in law, we saw a decrease,and it's been a continual
(27:59):
decrease in the percentage oflocal funds used to fund salary
schedules. So we had districtsthat were funding for salary
schedules at 35% out of localfunds in 2011 2012 that are now
at 10% or 8% which allows thedistricts to do other things
with those monies. And one ofthe things that has been really,
(28:22):
I think, missed by a lot ofpeople in this state is that a
lot of those monies that we'regoing to our Certified staff
have started going to ourclassified staff. It's you're
not going to find people to workfor 725, an hour. And so we've
seen this sharp increase in thelocal funds that are going to
our classified staff, and it'syou pick your district. I can't
(28:44):
think of a district that sayswe've got all the classified
staff we need. If thispredictability is gone, my
concern is that we're back toputting a much more difficult
burden on local school districtsto have levies to use those
scarce funds. I don't know whatit's a difficult decision at a
(29:05):
local level. Do we then start reemphasizing these monies back
towards our certified torecruit, retain our certified?
If so, we're going to lose ourclassified or they're not going
to work for those poor wages.
And so you've, I think you'vehit a really big challenge with
the system we find ourselves inmoving forward.
Mike Journee (29:25):
Yeah, you know, we often talk about the chronic
underfunding of public educationin the state that's been going
on for decades. And we talkabout how those bonds and levies
are part of the way thisdistrict backfill, and if they
can't pass those bonds andlevies, then they have a really
hard time. This sounds like MattCompton. It sounds like this is
just gonna complicate that evenmore and bring in the I'm just
(29:49):
gonna use the word ridiculouspolitics that we find around
education at the state housethese days. Yeah,
Unknown (29:56):
absolutely. You bring up the chronic underfunding of
education and. One of thereasons that it was so critical
that the career ladder beimplemented is that the state
needed to find a morecompetitive way to compensate
educators with the competingstates around us, whereas
Wyoming, Washington, Oregon,they're all paying educators
significantly more than Idaho.
So in a way to create thatcompetition, they thought, well,
(30:19):
let's create the career ladder,but they also built in a
tremendous amount ofaccountability into the career
ladder, different measurementsgrowth measurements that
educators need to demonstrate inorder to qualify for different
types of increases for salaryand benefits. So as the career
ladder made more money flow todistricts that also increased to
(30:41):
the complex complications ofgetting money to specific
educators based on which cohortthey were part of, or how many
years of service, or whether ornot they completed the master
educator premium. There were alot of hoops that folks needed
to jump through. So we created alot more predictability with the
career ladder. But as we'vediscussed, other states around
(31:04):
us have continued to makeinvestments in education and the
chronic underfunding ofeducation, these historic
investments over the last decadeinto school funding really has
been historic and noteworthy,and we are still chronically
underfunded. When it comes toIdaho education, you can look at
our classrooms and ourdilapidated buildings. You can
(31:24):
look at the pipeline report thatthe State Board of Education
just released that found thatadministrators and educators and
the business community all saythat compensating educators is
one of the top three issues sothat we have highly qualified
educators in the state so thatwe're prepared to educate
students regardless of of theirzip code. And so we really are
(31:46):
going into some gray territory,without any kind of
predictability, and with J factnow Joint Finance and
appropriations committee at thelegislature arguing over how
best to take that 5% and overlayit over salaries and benefits
for educators, and what doesthat look like for other state
(32:07):
employees? The debate is, shouldwe only give $1.55 an hour to
everybody? And I truly don'tknow how you would qualify that
$1.55 per educator across theboard, districts would see the
that increase go out, but it isstill extremely difficult to
qualify and predict what thatmoney would look like in
(32:28):
preparation for negotiations.
Now, if I was an educator and Isettled down in the community,
let's use the example likelapway, I want to teach in a
rural district, and I'm going togive 567, years of my career to
that in order for me to plantroots in that community, I have
to be able to make enough moneyto live in that community, and
(32:48):
that starting teacher salary inIdaho, even with the career
ladder out over the last handfulof years, has still placed the
starting teacher salary near theBottom of the nation, I still
think we're ranked 50th when itcomes to starting teacher
salary, and even in averageteacher salary, we're buried
somewhere near the bottom. Andso even after 10 years of
(33:10):
investment in the career ladder,there's a lot more work that
needs to be done in order for usto attract and retain highly
qualified teachers to be in theclassrooms with these incredibly
important natural resources ofIdaho students.
Mike Journee (33:26):
Yeah, that's right, but just quickly honor to
remind our listeners that thatto follow the latest news on
public education. You can followIda reporter. You go to
idahoea.org, backslash reporter,or go over to the News tab at
the top of the navigation andfind reporter there, as well as
this podcast. So Jason, you knowas as a Region Director for in
(33:49):
region two up in the MoscowLewiston area, this
unpredictability of injectingState House politics into the
determination about allocatingfunds for teacher salaries
creates a whole different levelof complexity and challenge for
(34:09):
locals as they're beginning toprepare for bargaining for their
salaries, as we mentioned, thecareer ladder that and the local
salary schedule have not had tomatch up in recent years, but it
did provide some predictability.
Vocals could understand how muchmoney districts were going to be
given with the intent of itbeing spent on salaries. Wasn't
(34:31):
always spent on salaries, butnow that predictability is going
out the window, that's going tocomplicate contract negotiations
all across the state internet.
Unknown (34:43):
Yeah, as they say, the devil is in the details. And
you're right, the highest payingsalary in the career ladder as
an advanced professional five Ithink, is roughly $68,000 a
year. I don't have a district inmy region that doesn't pay more
than several. Will pay over$80,000 a year. But as that
(35:04):
apportionment flows to a schooldistrict, while one can look at
the school funding and say, it'sincredibly complicated, once you
really dig into it, it's notthat complicated, and it's
predictable, and thepredictability and the, if you
will, comfort of how we fundschools in Idaho, been at the
(35:27):
whims of the legislature. It hasbeen a commitment of the
legislature, a commitment of thestate that was predictable. And
now that we are moving tosomething that we don't know,
what exactly it's going to looklike, $1.50 per hour per
employee, or how are they goingto add 5% to the current model?
(35:48):
Creates some unpredictabilityand some difficulty in planning
for the future. And if you'rehaving difficulty planning for
the future, it's really hard tobargain for the future, I would
say, in every instance I'mfamiliar with negotiations, the
negotiations have always erredon a more conservative side in a
(36:11):
financial settlement, and thatwas with predictability and
stability. Withunpredictability. I'm not so
sure that districts are going tobe real comfortable with making
the kinds of commitments they'vemade in the past. And I look at
a district that does follow thecareer ladder as its salary
schedule, if that model iscodified but not funded as it
(36:38):
has been, how do they nowdetermine what they're going to
pay people? That's been theirmethodology. This cell says this
is what you get paid. That cellis no longer funded like that.
That cell number doesn't change.
What do they do in some of ourrural districts, the
(36:59):
superintendent is thesuperintendent, maybe sometimes
durbs, bus chaperones. You canjust think of all of the hats
some of these folks have towear. The Business Manager is
not a CPA and is not a schoolfinance expert. This is really
going to be a struggle for this.
I am deeply concerned about themechanics of how these monies
(37:23):
are going to flow to districtsfor their apportionment to be
able to determine this is whatwe look like for next year based
upon our current staffing. Ifthat's not really clear,
abundantly predictable, it'sgoing to make bargaining and
salary discussions incrediblydifficult and
Micah, that brings up somethingthat has been an issue over the
(37:44):
last handful of years. When itcomes to initiatives from the
legislature, we can look at thewhat was it this $6,500
investment that went into eachrung of the career ladder that
was supposed to like ongoing$6,500 increase for salaries now
that goes into every rung of thecareer ladder, but what some
(38:07):
districts do is, you know, theyhave to hire above and beyond
what the number of Support UnitsThe state provides funding for,
meaning that they need to havemore educators. They need to
have more ESPs in the classroom.
They need more janitorialservices. Whatever it is that
their school district needs outor exceeds or differentiates
itself from what the state isgoing to make as an allocation
(38:29):
so that takes away a lot of thelocal control for a school
district to build and develop adistrict that reflects their
community. If the chronicunderfunding continues, those
decisions at the bargaining comeup table come down to do we
compensate our educators so thatwe can give them a fair, livable
wage in a community and retainthem for next year? Or do we
take those resources and investthem into something else in our
(38:52):
district? Those are the harddecisions that the
administrators and the folks atthe bargaining table are going
to have to make with this newchaos that comes with this new
way of investing in the careerladder.
Mike Journee (39:07):
So Matt, what are you hearing at the State House
about, if there's any discussionabout some kind of a change, a
fix that will create morepredictability, is
Superintendent Critchfield orthe governor, or anyone
concerned about this in the waythat we are,
Unknown (39:22):
I think that folks are trying to get through this
legislative session withoutopening up too many code
sections. In order to makesubstantive changes to the
career ladder, you would have togo into code, and you would have
to add additional monies to eachof those wrongs. And jfac, the
Joint Finance and appropriationscommittee would actually have to
(39:43):
fund it. We don't have a veryfriendly legislature this year.
We're arguing over a number ofissues, first and foremost being
vouchers. The first voucher billthat comes out had a two $50
million price tag on it. Allothers have no less than $50
million Yeah. And so thelegislature is also struggling
between, are we going to make aninvestment in the education
(40:05):
system that we'reconstitutionally bound to fund,
which is the public schoolsystems, or are we going to fund
a secondary form of privateschools through a voucher
system, which would decrease theamount of financial resources
that could go to districts thatcould continue the investments
in schools that would addressthat chronic underfunding. I
think the legislature right nowis less focused on, how are we
(40:29):
going to compensate the currentpublic education teachers that
we have in our schools, andoverwhelmingly focused on, how
do we establish a secondary formof education that doesn't
comport with our constitutionthrough a voucher program,
Mike Journee (40:44):
a secondary system that they've created self
fulfilling prophecy for by thischronic underfunding. When they
talk about underperformingpublic schools and their lack of
proper funding for them, thethey're creating that self
fulfillment problems. That's
Unknown (40:57):
right, Mike and you, we mentioned that the amount of
kind of accountability that's inthe career ladder, the
measurements that all of theeducators must meet in order to
qualify for any kind of a raiseor advancement do they want to
move along in their career path?
You know, there's a lot ofaccountability built into the
career ladder we're discussingnow. You know, in these voucher
schemes, sending out money toschools and the to the, you
(41:18):
know, 10s of millions of dollarswith no accountability. They
don't have to be qualified, theydon't have to be certified, they
don't even have to havebackground checks. And this
money will go out in to schoolsin the form of vouchers and
private and parochial schools,while traditional public schools
will continue to see the chronicunderfunding. They will see less
(41:39):
money because of vouchers, andit will just continue to
exacerbate our ability toattract and retain highly
qualified educators in Idaho,yeah, and
Mike Journee (41:51):
I guess one quick extra point around the state
house for the side of this iswhat this every year, there's
always horse trading thathappens, right? There's always
something that gets caught up inthe last minute negotiations
around a bill that leadershiplaunch, or something like that.
I could easily see educatorsalaries getting tied up into
(42:13):
those kind of negotiations, um,at the last minute, which the
politics at the State Houseright now, just it screams that
kind of hostage taking aroundthis don't you agree 100% I
Unknown (42:24):
think that we will likely see towards the end of
the legislative session, somekind of Sophie's choice between
funding vouchers, 50 to $100million with no accountability
in one hand, or a significantIncrease in salaries and
benefits as sort of the takeyour medicine and enjoy this.
(42:45):
You'll get both vouchers andincreased funding. That's what
happened in Utah over the lastcouple of legislative sessions
where the governor and thelegislatures pre negotiated a
significant increase in educatorsalaries along with a voucher
scheme. We've seen that inArizona, in Oklahoma, in Florida
(43:07):
and other states where vouchershave taken over their budgets,
but we've seen the traditionalpublic schools suffer, and so
that's essentially a closingcourse we're on during this
session, and it will be up to usfor our voices to communicate
with lawmakers, why continuedinvestment in our traditional
public schools right now issomething that's absolutely
(43:28):
critical, absolutely not
Mike Journee (43:32):
well. Jason, Matt, any last thoughts about this
before we wrap up for thissession,
Unknown (43:38):
I would just reiterate something I mentioned earlier is
that those districts that dofollow the career ladder as
their salary schedule, dollarfor dollar, this move, if it's
not done correctly, if it's notdone with predictability, could
be a real disaster for them,because they they may not have a
clear picture of how they aregoing to aid people at the local
(44:00):
level, the model that they haveused for the last 10 years will
no longer be applicable to theway they're funded, and that
could be a huge problem at thelocal level.
Mike, I think this conversationdemonstrates that there's still
time in this session for thelegislature to reevaluate how
they want to approach salariesand benefits for educators. How
(44:21):
you can differentiate thesefolks from other state
employees? They've never beentreated treated the same in the
past. Everything is in separatecode. I think that the
legislature really should try tomake fewer significant and jerky
policy decisions thislegislative session that will
(44:42):
cause a lot of disruption andhavoc. We've had a lot of that
over the last handful of years,and I think that you know any
level of stability that thelegislature can provide when it
comes to ensuring educators thatwhen they get to the bargaining
table, that there will besomething to go towards. Their
paycheck at the end of the year,some increase in compensation is
(45:04):
going to be absolutely critical.
Yeah.
Mike Journee (45:06):
And so, you know, I would, I would expect, Jason,
you would recommend that thatlocal union presidents and their
bargaining teams get on the balland kind of understand what's
going on and start working withtheir Region Director around
this as soon as they possiblycan. Of course, we don't know
what we don't know until thelegislature adjourns, but locals
can do a little bit of prep inadvance and get a better
(45:27):
understanding of what's comingtheir way so that they're a
little bit better prepared forwhatever does come their way.
Unknown (45:33):
Absolutely, this is we talk about your salary schedule
and what you negotiate at thelocal level. These are your
lifetime earnings. This is areflection of the values of your
local association, of yourdistrict, of your community, and
it's really big stuff, and itmakes a difference in your
students lives. And so, yeah,absolutely, it's time to get
engaged and be a part of aproactive solution, as opposed
(45:58):
to just out at the last minute.
This doesn't work very well.
Mike Journee (46:03):
Welcome. Thank you for having this conversation
with me. Very complex, verychallenging issue in front of
us, something that I think ourmembers are going to want to
know more about as we go throughthis session. Jason McKinley,
Matt Compton, thanks for joiningus. Thank you for listening to
this episode of the IAEAreporter podcast, and thanks to
(46:25):
IEA, Jason McKinley, MattCompton and Chris Perry for
joining us. Please watch forupdates about new episodes on
IAEA social media channels orsign up to receive IA reporter
email updates on ourwebsite@idahoea.org, I'm Mike
Journee, and as always, I hopeyou join me in thanking Idaho's
public school educators foreverything they do for our State
(46:46):
students, families and publicschools. You
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