Thousands of Polk County teachers to get $100s more in pay this week as retro-pay kicks in
Incorrect data entered into Polk County Public Schools payroll system had left hundreds of teachers short in their paychecks since December.
But as of Thursday, the teachers' raises and backpay should all be caught up and included in their paychecks, according to union president Stephanie Yocum with the Polk Educators Association.
In Polk County, the union represents three bargaining units comprised of 9,000 school district employees, including 7,000 teachers, 1,500 paraeducators and 500 secretarial and clerical workers. The payroll snafu impacted about half of the union’s membership.
The union had filed a class-action grievance on Feb. 1 over the pay issues, citing problems since December with district paychecks sent to its members with inaccurate wage levels.
In a press release about the grievance filing, the union alleged “breach of contract in their failure to move staff to the correct pay levels as negotiated in the new contracts effective July 1st of 2023, resulting in underpayments since December 22nd, 2023.”
The current school year contract with the union was ratified by the School Board on Oct. 24. By the date of the grievance on Feb. 1, the union said it had “given the district 100 days and six pay cycles to place staff on their new levels and ensure their paychecks are correct."
When teachers began submitting electronic notices to the district in mid-December and again on Dec. 22 – the first paycheck under the new contract – they received a blanket response: “We are in receipt of your ticket and a response should be expected no later than March of 2024. We are working through end of year close out such as W-2 processing. We will work diligently to provide a response as timely as possible.”
This “outraged” PEA, it said in the release, and the union demanded “an earlier resolution.” The union was aware that the district had caught the payroll errors because the staff payroll system contained a notice to employees.
“Please disregard the total years of service calculation as we are working to update this field,” an electronic banner said.
Further, the PEA said it had been assured during negotiations on Jan. 22 that pay level movements would be calculated based on seniority-hire date and the district’s upper-level management knew about the inaccuracies in the system.
The school district did not respond to an email sent Wednesday for further details about the issues raised by the union.
In a phone interview Wednesday, Yocum said data entered into the district’s payroll system did not account for pay level increases that left many teachers hundreds of dollars short.
“So what happened was the district used the incorrect years of experience that everybody knew was wrong,” Yocum said. The “correct seniority hire dates” for the teachers have now been entered and their corresponding pay levels are now correct.
Some teachers were missing two to three years of experience in determining their pay levels, and in some extreme cases, Yocum said union members were missing as much as $700 to $800 in their paychecks, but most were short $100 to $200 on average.
In other efforts by the union, it is trying to eliminate wage compression for teachers who have a decade or more experience but whose salary is stuck near or below $47,500, the current minimum starting salary for teachers in Florida. Unlike experienced veteran teachers, most new to the profession are in classrooms on temporary teaching licenses, while working toward a permanent license and subject area certifications.
Yocum said the union, which is expected to top 60% membership this year, is closely watching the state budget due out in March because negotiations with the district will resume in April for next school year’s contract.
What will Polk get? Some funding requests are repeats of items that were vetoed last year
During the negotiations for the 2022-23 school year, the union sought and gained $30 million for teachers, maintaining the district’s zero-cost health plan with an injection of $14 million for the district’s contribution to the Florida Retirement System and the remainder for raises.
Starting pay for new teachers was increased during the 2022 legislative session in Tallahassee.
The funding in the education bill moved Florida's ranking for starting teacher pay to 16th nationwide, according to the Economic Policy Institute. But Florida’s average teacher pay compared to other states falls near the bottom at 48th in the country.
Yocum pointed out that per-student spending in Florida is 42nd in the country all while Florida has the third largest economy in the United States and it the 17th largest economy in the world with $20 billion budget surpluses.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk County teachers finally getting retroactive pay this week
