A teacher employment package for the 2002-2003 school year, which provides for fully funded employee health care coverage and the funding for horizontal movement on the salary schedule, was approved by the Governing Board Thursday night. The cost of the employment package is roughly $2.25 million, equivalent to a 3% increase in compensation.

Approval of the employment package follows five scheduled and numerous additional "meet and confer" meetings between teams of teachers and administrators, at which time budget information and implications were thoroughly discussed.

"There was a lot of careful and active listening," said Bob Flach, the District's chief financial officer, in describing the process. "We exchanged information and data. We discussed contract language, the rationale behind any change, state funding, and local finances," he said.

Sales tax revenues earmarked for education through Prop. 301 are down 13% over what state leaders projected. Compounding this shortfall is the District's recent $3.3 million cut to next year's maintenance and operation (M&O) budget, due to an override defeat at the ballot box last fall. In addition, state funds based on the District's enrollment will be down, since current enrollment figures are flat, Mr. Flach said. And finally, District officials believe the state may cut funding even further for next year, as legislators struggle with a $1.6 billion deficit.

On top of these revenue shortfalls is a 21.9% increase in employee health care costs--almost 44% over two years-that the District will absorb as part of this package.

"We did not want to create a situation where we would have to increase class sizes any more than necessary to handle the current fiscal challenges, or where teachers would lose their jobs in order to fund vertical movement on the salary schedule," said Kim Cumby, executive director for Human Resource Services. "The package incorporates changes in staffing language in order to lower costs, yet keep the impact on students at a minimum. As an example, we still will be able to maintain all of our teaching positions for the gifted by reallocating teachers in order to provide equitable services to students throughout the District," Mrs. Cumby said.

"Separately, we will maintain all of our current academic counselors, and will increase caseloads gradually through attrition," Mrs. Cumby added. Another change in the package will provide more teachers with the opportunity to job share. This change relaxes the requirements and doubles the number of job share positions to four, from the current two, she said.
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The Scottsdale Unified School District has 33 schools serving 27,025 students. More than 3,000 persons are employed by the district, including 1,829 teachers. The district celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1996. Its boundaries include most, but not all of the city of Scottsdale, almost all of the town of Paradise Valley, a section of the city of Phoenix, and a section of the city of Tempe.