CCSD administrators’ contract awards 2.79 percent raise

The 2014-15 contract for Clark County’s public school administrators will cost $5.29 million more than the previous year due largely to a 2.79 percent across-the-board pay increase for 1,300 staff.

The Clark County School Board approved the administrators’ contract late Thursday night, leaving the Clark County School District to still negotiate contracts with the Education Support Employees Association – representing 11,000 workers, including bus drivers, janitors, teaching aides, food service employees and clerical workers – and the police officers and police administrators unions, representing a total of about 150 people.

A contract for the district’s largest employee group, teachers, was approved in early October, awarding $54 million in pay raises, including a 1 percent across-the-board raise for all 18,000 teachers.

The district and teachers union, the Clark County Education Association, have complained that the low starting teacher salary of less than $35,000 was to blame for the district’s inability to fill 600 teacher positions this year, which are still filled by substitute teachers.

However, the parties came to an agreement that left the starting salary unchanged and rewarded more senior teachers with pay raises, drawing criticism for not investing in new teachers or creating a pay system that would for the first time reward performance instead of seniority and continued education.

The administrators union did differently, agreeing to a provision in its contract that would establish a committee of district and union representatives to create a performance pay system in 2015-16.

Clark County’s pay scale has long used a system of steps and columns where administrators, as well as teachers, receive automatic pay raises annually until they reach the top step, regardless of their performance. They also receive automatic raises for earning advanced degrees, moving them over on the columns of the pay scale with each column providing a higher salary.

Contact Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Find him on Twitter: @TrevonMilliard.