Moses Lake School Board approves new contracts

MOSES LAKE — In a special meeting on Wednesday, the Moses Lake School Board approved new contacts for its senior leaders, including what the board is calling “an unprecedented and innovative approach to employee compensation.”

“We implemented performance-based pay for our district, starting with our superintendent,” said board member Elliott Goodrich.

The three-year contract, which expires at the end of 2021, will pay superintendent Josh Meek a base salary of $198,993 per year. The board also agreed to a base bonus in the 2018-2019 school year of $15,000, plus an additional 10 percent “of the base salary” instead of education expenses and professional development.

However, beginning in fall 2019, the size of the superintendent’s bonus will be determined based on Meek’s ability to meet “the district’s overall goals and objectives,” with a minimum bonus in 2019-20 of $20,000 and $25,000 for 2020-21.

According to the contract, the goals will be “developed collaboratively” by the board and the superintendent no later than Sept. 1 (Dec. 1 for this school year), will be “specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound” and will be evaluated by the board no later than June 30.

And this evaluation will determine the actual size of the superintendent’s bonus.

“We have a goal this year of cutting 5 percent out of our budget,” Goodrich said. “He will be paid proportionally according to hitting that goal.”

“This is setting a precedent,” Goodrich added. “We hold people accountable and make sure they’re doing what we pay them to do.”

Goodrich added the contract “is a lot better” than anything he’d seen previously or elsewhere in Washington to give school officials an incentive “to do the best possible work.”

Meek agreed, saying his new contract sends a message on the district’s priorities.

“We hope this sets up a culture where strong performance is rewarded, and it sends a strong message of the board’s desire to have compensation tied to performance,” Meek said.

“The goals are direct products of the strategic focus set with the school board,” Meek said. “Other leaders have this, not to the same depth, it’s a much more significant part of my contract, but they have the same expectation.

Both Meek and Goodrich made it clear that senior administrators’ bonuses would not be tied to student test scores.

“The metrics have to be much deeper than test scores,” he said. “Our students are much more than just test takers.”

When asked if performance-based pay would affect contracts with teachers and classified staff, Goodrich said only that he is “in favor of performance-based pay in all walks of life.”

“It allows people to stretch themselves and make things better,” Goodrich said.

The district finally released the revised salary schedule for its 2016-2019 contract with the Moses Lake Education Association following a public records request from the Columbia Basin Herald. The district needed to renegotiate the salary scale for its teachers following the state legislature’s passage of a new funding formula for state school earlier this year that wiped out the state’s salary schedule, forcing each district in the state to renegotiate teachers contracts.

The base pay for a starting teacher with only a bachelor’s degree is $46,984, while the base pay for a starting teacher with a master’s degree is $56,330. A teacher with only a bachelor’s degree who has accumulated 90 or more additional education credits and taught for ten years earns a base salary of $66,961.

The highest base rate for a Moses Lake teacher is $88,557 for a teacher with a doctorate, or a master’s degree and 90 or more additional education credits, who has taught for 15 or more years.

In 2017, the state legislature changed the law making medical, dental and vision insurance for teachers the responsibility of the state public employee benefit system.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com