In closed-door negotiations, the Churchill County School District and the Churchill County Education Association were set to meet Monday to begin discussions on the 2022-23 contract for the next school year. According to those involved in negotiations, both parties must agree to ground rules in order to proceed with negotiations, one of which is that there is no publicity, no talking to the media, and no discussion outside the negotiations.
According to Superintendent Summer Stephens, who responded to email, the last contract between teachers and the district did not have a COLA (cost of living adjustment). In the contract for this school year, 2021-22 which was approved in January of 2022, she said all teachers got step increases for years of service, column movement for education, and the district continues to pay their full PERS, which now, between employees and employer is 29.75% of their salary. The district also paid insurance increase of 8% to continue paying fully for employee coverage.
“We did not have a COLA this year or last year,” she said.
The last COLA was 1.5% that was given during the 2019-20 school year when Governor Sisolak pushed the legislature to include a 3% raise for teachers in the state budget.
“All staff who returned this year also got $1500 retention stipend and all new staff and subs who worked 500+ hours last year got $1000,” said Stephens.
Although teachers get step increases for their years of service as well as education, once a teacher reaches 26 years with the district and maxes out the education increases, or they do not continue with their education, they no longer receive salary increases, leaving the most experienced teachers in the district with no financial improvement.
During the last school board meeting, held on March 23, high school special education teacher Bonnie Hargis spoke during public comment and reminded board members that the retention stipend does not go toward helping fund teachers’ retirement in PERS (Public Employees Retirement System) and those teachers who have topped out on the steps due to their commitment and longevity to the district are not getting step increases, which also affects their PERS.
Jennifer Gehant who teaches first grade and is serving as President of the CCEA also spoke during public comment. She said going into the first negotiation session Monday she wanted to put it out there that with social security increasing 5.9 percent and the CPI increasing 8.1 in the past 12 months, with rents soaring and gas prices doubling, Churchill is the only district in the state of Nevada that hasn’t offered pay increases.
“As the negotiations chair, I put out a survey to staff regarding what their objective would be going into this with one salary and two language options. The overwhelming vitriol and frustration is with us being the sole district that has not offered additional pay increases when people are struggling to make ends meet,” she said. “People are leaving the district.”
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