Westford School Committee to Seek Override this Spring

With another three-year teachers contract on the horizon, School Committee members are taking a proactive approach to bridging, what they call, a significant gap in salaries – a condition that fueled rancor among the teachers during a negotiation period from 2010 to 2012.

School Committee member Tom Clay made a presentation to his fellow members on Dec. 19, recommending an override request to bridge a 6.23 percent gap in the salary amounts paid to teachers. The gap, he said, is in comparison to the amounts paid to teachers in comparable Massachusetts communities. Members unanimously approved the request with Chris Sanders absent from the meeting.

“We are focusing most closely on the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education benchmark set and relative to that benchmark set which looks at schools that have similar populations of students, we are 6.23 percent below on average,” Clay said.

The benchmark communities are Franklin, Hingham, Hopkinton, Nashoba, Needham, Sharon, Shrewsbury, Wachusett, Wellesley, and Winchester. Numbers examined include total enrollment in each school, scores on assessment tests known as MCAS, and the median student growth percentile garnered from those tests.

From 2010 to 2012, as the Great Recession impacted town budgets across the region, the School Committee and the Westford Education Association bitterly fought over finances. As negotiations dragged on over 18 months, the union filed an unfair labor practice grievance with the state Division of Labor Relations in April 2012. Ultimately, the teachers agreed to forego an increase in 2011-2012 and 2012-2013, and accepted a 1 percent cost of living increase for 2013-2014.

“Six years ago when we negotiated the budget, the teachers had to take zeros,” said School Committee member Erika Kohl, who is one of only two remaining members from that period. “It was a very difficult time for the town. We were in a recession…and we really didn’t have the money.”

According to online documents posted by the School Committee, an override of Proposition 2 ½ would equate to an increase of $306.82 to the average homeowner’s tax bill.

“We will need an additional $3 million per year in our school budget to close this gap for the next three years of this contract,” the School Committee document states.

Proposition 2 ½ is a state law that limits annual property tax increases to 2.5 percent plus new growth. An override of the limitation would require selectmen’s approval to put the request on the annual Town Meeting warrant this spring. If Town Meeting voters approve the increase, the request would then go to the ballot box in the town-wide election in May.

Clay’s presentation provides an example of 2017 teachers salaries from entry level to most experienced, as measured in 14 total steps. Westford teachers start at $42,611, according to the document as compared to a Wellesley first year teacher at $47,541. Salaries increase by incremental steps based on tenure and level of higher education. At the highest step in Westford, a teacher with a master’s degree would earn $74,185 per year, as compared to a teacher in Wellesley who would earn $80,822.

The average beginning salary among a selection of 10 communities is $45,291. The average top salary among the same communities is $77,706. But the gap between the average salaries and Westford earnings widens most in the middle years when teachers are at steps 6 through 13. At that point the gap grows to 12.27 percent in step 10.

Town Manager Jodi Ross stated in an email that town revenues will not cover the requested salary increases for teachers. A request for comment by Selectman Chairman Andrea Peraner-Sweet was not immediately returned, nor was one sent to Mary McCusker, president of the Westford Education Foundation, the teachers union.

But Clay put into perspective the School Committee’s position on the matter.

“The teachers were good partners to the town during that sometime difficult journey,” he said of the previous bargaining periods. “Now that we understand the data and we’ve looked at it carefully, there’s a clear problem here to fix…”

Follow Joyce Pellino Crane on Twitter @joypellinocrane.