Moses Lake board OKs teacher, staff contracts
Moses Lake School Board members Vicki Groff (left) and Eric Stones listen to contract details during the board meeting Thursday.
MOSES LAKE — Teachers and classified staff in the Moses Lake School District will receive raises for the 2016-17 school year. Moses Lake School Board members approved agreements with the unions representing certificated (teachers) and classified staff at the regular meeting Thursday.
Board members approved a new, three-year agreement with the Moses Lake Education Association (which represents teachers). Teachers will receive a 4.7 percent raise for the current school year. That includes a 1.8 percent raise approved for teachers and classified personnel statewide by the Washington Legislature.
Teachers will receive a 3 percent raise in the contract’s second year and another 3 percent in its third year. Director of business and finance Eric Johnson said both sides will reexamine the issue of class sizes in the contract’s third year.
Part of the salary increases will be paid by the district, and board member Eric Stones asked how the district pays for those. District superintendent Michelle Price replied it’s the priority in the budget process. Salaries, said board chair Kevin Donovan, make up 82 percent of the budget. Board member Vicki Groff said that’s an important reason the district needs a strategic plan, to ensure the district has a sustainable financial plan.
The negotiations with the union representing classified personnel concerned salaries only. Classified staff includes classroom aides, cooks, bus drivers and other employees who work at school but aren’t teachers.
All classified employees got the same 1.8 percent raise approved by the Legislature. District officials conducted a salary survey of other schools in the Big 9, said assistant superintendent Josh Meek. The Big 9 was chosen because the schools are similar in size and communities to Moses Lake, Meek said.
The goal, Meek said, was to establish a median for schools in the Big 9 and ensure MLSD classified salaries are close to that median. Some, like custodians and nutrition program workers, were under the median, while others, like mechanics and maintenance workers, were close to or at it.
Meek said district officials took the salary increases into account when writing the 2016-17 budget.
In other business, board members approved the 2016-17 budget.
The general fund was budgeted at $99.9 million. The general fund pays for most school operation – salaries, supplies, building maintenance. The ASB fund was projected at $1.7 million; it pays for part of student activities. The debt service fund pays back money the district owes on outstanding bonds and was budgeted at $2.6 million. The capital projects fund, which pays for new construction and some remodeling projects, was budgeted at $1.7 million. The transportation vehicle fund can be used only to buy school buses and was budgeted at $675,000.
Johnson said the budget is based on a projected enrollment of 8.025 students, with another 174 students in the Running Start program and 164 in the online learning program. Running Start allows qualifying high school juniors and seniors to attend college classes while they’re attending high school. The digital program allows students to take classes online. In both programs students may or may not be taking classes at Moses Lake High School as well.
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