No raises for Worcester Co. teachers after budget passed
A new budget has been adopted Worcester County that does not include teacher raises that teachers say were promised to them in their contracts.
County Commissioners President Madison Bunting said although the decision was a tough one, ultimately the county could not find money to allocate for the teachers.
“We had to make a hard decision whether we were going to fund salary increases or not and the fact is we just didn’t have the money to fund them,” Bunting said.
However commissioner Joe Mitrecic D-7, who voted against passing the budget as is, said there was money available for the teachers, $1.4 million, the county instead decided to put it aside in a savings account for the county.
With the newly adopted budget the teacher’s union says that roughly half of the county’s teachers, based on their experience, could make more money if they took jobs in surrounding counties, including Somerset County.
“We do have teachers as a result of years of not being funded that could go to another county and immediately make more money because they would get credit for their full years of service,” said Beth Shockley-Lynch, president of the Worcester County Teachers Union and a first grade teacher in the county.
The superintendent of schools, Dr. Jerry Wilson, said he’s worried how the county can keep and bring in teacher after another year with no raises.
“As far being competitive we are concerned about remaining competitive to keep and retain and hire,” Wilson said.
As a teacher and union president Shockley-Lynch worries about how another year with no raises will affect educators. As a mother, she worries about how it will affect her daughter and other students like her.
“I don’t want her to have a below average teacher. I want her to have the best of the best,” Shockley-Lynch said. “I can comfortably say that there’s no other parent who’s going to say I want a mediocre teacher for my child.”
Bunting said his message to teachers is that although the raises did not come this year, the county has plans to make things better for educators in the county.
“I just ask them to be patient,” Bunting said. “Hopefully with our planning next year we’ll be able to do something for them.”
The new budget also hits other county employees hard because of the raises in property, income and waste and water taxes.
Mitrecic said all the county employees, including the teachers, are in the same boat and deserve to get the raises they worked hard for.
Although Bunting said he knows the county voters won’t like the new budget, he hopes they understand that tough decisions had to be made.
“You have to make the hard decisions and hopefully the voters and the public will understand and maybe we can prove what we did was right and next year it’ll be better,” Bunting said.
