Worcester County teachers likely not receiving “Step Pay”

Teachers in Worcester County can work as hard as they want, work endless hours and strive to be the best teacher that they can, but it looks like they still won’t be seeing a pay increase this year. 47 ABC spoke with Beth Shockley-Lynch who is a 1st grade teacher at Snow Hill elementary school as well as the President of the Worcester County Teachers Association.

She tells 47 ABC, “My teachers have been facing these tough decisions year after year after year after year.”

And they face a difficult decision, should they stay in the county, when they don’t get a pay raise. At a budget meeting this past Wednesday, County Commissioners voted 5 to 1 to not give them a raise, but a final decision won’t come until June 2nd.

Shockley-Lynch tells 47 ABC, “What we know right now it’s very disappointing that they’re not looking at our increase.”

Shockley-Lynch says public school teachers are supposed to get pay increases after each year called “steps” along with cost of living adjustments, or COLA’s. She says it happens routinely in other counties across Maryland, but in Worcester County since 2009, there’s only been 1, and the district has been struggling to keep teachers.

Shockley-Lynch tells 47 ABC, “It’s very troubling that we are losing good qualified teachers to other counties because our pay scale is not keeping up.”

47 ABC also spoke with Commissioner Joe Mitrecic who did not vote because his wife and sister-in-law are both teachers.

Mitrecic tells 47 ABC, “I do what I think is best for the county and the town of Ocean City and that is what I was elected to do. For us to lose teachers to Somerset County is very discouraging for us to lose teachers to wicomico county is discouraging.”

He says the money that could go toward teacher pay increases, will instead likely go to the county’s general fund. When asked specifically what it might be spent on, he said “non-budgeted emergency expenses”, for example road repairs or bridge repairs.

Mitrecic tells 47 ABC, “Our teachers do a good job they should be rewarded for what they do. Yes, I do believe they deserve raises can we give them to them I don’t know.”

Shockley- Lynch says another major issue that teachers may face, their taxes will increase, but their pay wont. There is an online petition for those who are interested in supporting teachers receiving these raises:

https://www.change.org/p/worcester-county-commissioners-increase-the-pay-for-all-county-teachers-up-to-current-pay-rate?recruiter=221334001&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=share_facebook_responsive&utm_term=des-lg-no_src-custom_msg&fb_ref=Default