School board debates bonus pay for part-timers

Teachers and other employees in the Lincoln Parish School District will be taking home a bonus paycheck this holiday season, and some will receive more than one.

The district is preparing to pay out multiple staff stipends on Dec. 19, funded by the state in this year’s legislative session. The school board’s Finance Committee met Thursday to begin hashing out the details of these payouts, a process that is expected to conclude at a Nov. 7 meeting of the full board.

For full- time employees, the stipend amounts are clear, but the committee debated various payout structures for part-time workers, a discussion that featured some ideological differences in how to define fairness.

The Legislature funded a one-time pay raise of $2,000 for certified employees and $1,000 for support staff, sending more than $1.7 million to Lincoln Parish for that purpose.

Pre-K teachers and staff weren’t included in that, but the committee unanimously agreed the district should include them and pay the cost of doing so out of its own pocket.

The state also funded a separate payout, called “differentiated compensation,” that will go to specific groups of teachers: those who were deemed “highly effective” in their Compass evaluation last spring, and those who teach in “critical shortage areas,” namely secondary math, secondary science and special education.

Teachers in those categories in Lincoln Parish will get about $560. You cannot double-qualify in both groups.

All that is set in stone by the state. The school board’s wiggle room lies in how it breaks out the $2,000/$1,000 full-time stipend to its part-time employees.

At meetings throughout the past year, the board has heard several complaints from the public regarding compensation and forced hour limits for part-time employees, as well as preferential treatment for certified teachers when determining bonus pay.

“Resentment” from certain employee groups was on board members’ minds as they debated whether to provide all part-time workers who work at least 20 hours a week with the same flat $1,600/$800 stipend, or instead prorate each part-time worker’s payout based on the number of hours he or she works.

“I could sense that there could be some resentment from somebody who says, ‘Well I’m only allowed to work 20 hours, you’re working 26 and you get a bigger bonus than me,” District 8 board member Gregg Phillips said.

Durrett said there could also be resentment from the higher- hour workers if everyone is paid the same.

Members agreed they wanted the fairest option. The discussion boiled down to how “fairness” is interpreted: whether it’s fairer to pay everyone the same or to base payments on number of hours worked.

District 7 member Hunter Smith said he believed the prorated structure was fairer because “it’s based on what you do.”

“In my office, people do different things,” District 7 member Hunter Smith said. “ If they work extra, they make more. If they have higher credentials, they make more. I understand that some people have the ability to work more — that’s just kind of the way of life.”

Others disagreed, saying hours aren’t always an employee’s choice.

“They didn’t ask to work 37 hours or less than 37 hours,” board Vice President Lynda Henderson said. “Wasn’t that what we told them?”

“That’s what we hired them at, according to our need,” Durrett answered.

“To me that’s still not fair,” Henderson said.

In 2016 the school district sought to cut its rising healthcare costs by transitioning many of its paraprofessionals to a fixed 28-hour work week, making them ineligible for benefits.

Smith, board President Joe Mitcham and District 5 member Danny Hancock each indicated favor for the prorated option at some point.

But when Smith asked Durrett’s administrative team their thoughts, and they said they believed the across- the- board option was fairer, Smith made a motion to recommend that structure to the full board.

“Even though you’re paying more to these other groups ( in the across- the- board option), they’re some of our lowest paid per hour workers,” Chief Financial Officer Juanita Duke said. “It helps them out.”

That option passed the committee unanimously. If approved next week by the full board, part- time certificated teachers with at least 20 hours a week would receive a $1,600 stipend, and part-time support staff with at least 20 hours a week would receive $800.

Part-time staff who work less than 20 hours but more than 10, which is reportedly only about five people, would have their stipend prorated.

The across-the-board payout structure would only cost the board about $ 8,000 more than the prorated option in total.

Duke said the difference between the two for most part-time employees would be about $50 or $100.