On Wednesday, Oct. 31, the Observer*American printed an open letter to the public from the Konocti Unified School District Board of Trustees. As I read through this letter I was reminded of the old saying that, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” That certainly is the case here because the school board is only telling you part of the whole story.
The main idea in the school board”s letter was that it would like to offer its employees a salary increase, but the high cost of health insurance prevents it from doing so. Well, here are some facts that the board”s letter did not include. The Kelseyville school district and the Lakeport school district also cover 100 percent of the cost of health care insurance for their employees. Yes, it”s true that last year health care costs rose 13.4 percent for our district. But that is true for all of the districts around the lake. And yet, even with this increase in health care cost, Kelseyville Unified was able to give its employees a 3.5-percent pay increase and Lakeport Unified was able to give its employees a 5-percent pay increase. The Konocti School District offered its employees 0 percent. If Kelseyville Unified and Lakeport Unified can do it, why can”t Konocti Unified?
Here are some more facts that the school board neglected to mention. During the 2003-2004 school year the Konocti Unified School District spent 86 percent of its budget on employee compensation. By last school year, 2006-2007, that percentage had dropped to 78 percent of the budget spent on employee compensation. However, last year the Konocti school budget increased by 4.5 percent. So this means that at the same time that the district”s overall budget is increasing, the percentage of that budget spent on employees is decreasing. During this same period of time the percentage of the budget that goes toward the administrators rose from 6.48 percent to 6.95 percent. Why is that?
In its letter, the Konocti school board claims that high health insurance costs are the cause of all of its financial woes. But did you know that school board members get free health insurance paid for out of the district budget? Did you know that some past school board members and some administrators were given free health insurance for life? Pretty good deal isn”t it?
Apparently the school board feels that its image is somewhat tarnished. It has hired an outside consultant, at $215 per hour, to help it smooth over relations with its employees. Perhaps the school board members should give up their free health insurance, fire their consultant and put the money they save toward employee salaries. I believe that would go a long way toward smoothing relations.
At the end of last year, many of our teachers left to go to better-paying districts. This year more than 30 new teachers were hired and that still wasn”t enough to meet our needs. At Lower Lake High School many teachers are working extra periods to cover gaps in the schedule and four sections of Algebra had to be cut because our district could not hire enough teachers to fill all of the needed classes. Our salaries are simply not competitive with other districts.
This year the Konocti Unified School District budget is more than $31 million, a 2.45-percent increase over last year. The school board has the final say as to how that money will be spent and so far it has indicated that no new money will be spent to increase employee salaries. The employees of Konocti Unified are not asking that our salaries be made the highest in Lake and Mendocino counties, but neither do we think they should be the lowest. Other school districts throughout the state have realized that they must make their employees a priority if they want to attract and keep good people. We are simply asking that our district do the same. We ask that the School Board stop making feeble excuses about why they “can”t.” We ask that they do what other school districts have done, make their employees a priority and show them the respect they deserve.
Thank you.
Editor”s Note: John Lee is president of the Konocti Educators Association (KEA).
