SLPS slow to pay raise to some; Teachers upset
It seems some St. Louis Public School teachers did not receive their retroactive raises this past Friday, and aren’t happy about it.
The school board approved a 3 percent raise this spring, retroactive to July 1 last year. Teachers said they should have gotten the bump this past Friday. At least one teacher said today that she thought the district left out certain people on purpose.
Local 420’s Ray Cummings disagrees. “I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” said the teachers union leader. “When you’re dealing with 2,800 (teachers), there are going to be some mistakes.”
Cummings didn’t know exactly how many teachers weren’t paid, but he said, while the union office has gotten a lot of phone calls, he thinks it’s probably fewer than 100.
He understands the teacher’s sentiment, though: “There’s been so much instability for so long, and so many broken promises, even an honest mistake at this point looks like a broken promise.”
Cummings said the district has assured the union it’s going to straighten out the problem.
Phone calls to the payroll department went unheeded. But, just moments ago, I got a call from the superintendent himself. Kelvin Adams said about 200 of the districts 4,800 total employees didn’t get the raise, specifically those who had left the district, those on leave, and some who started less than a year ago.
They should all get paid, he said, on July 10.
Pay raises in a broke district?
Nice…