On Wednesday, while employees and other citizens rallied outside the Park City School District offices voicing concerns over COVID-19 safety protocols, the Board of Education ratified Board of Education ratified a district-wide employee contract that will increase salaries each year over the next four.
The multi-year employee contract represents about a $2.4 million dollar budget impact for this year. The negotiations ended with a four-year agreement, that when finished, will represent an 18 to 24% increase to employee salaries. The raise is for all employee groups and will include schedule changes and step increases over the next four years.
Park City School District Business Administrator Todd Hauber explained the financing mechanism they used.
“We will be funding it with growth in assessed valuations,” he said. “That's the main funder for this over the 4-year-period. Then we also reduced our insurance premium so internally that generates the savings which we can apply towards the compensation package. And then we will dip into the reserves a little bit like we did on the three-year contract.”
Hauber says it’s the same financial structure the district put in place with the past three-year contract which ended this spring. While no truth in taxation hearing was needed to give this year’s salary increase, there will be a minimal tax increase for next year.
“What we’re projecting right now is the tax increase would be in the neighborhood of $800,000 the next year, which is, when I was running some of the numbers, that's less than $3 increase on an annual tax bill.”
This year, the budget is reflecting a reduction of $500,000 in health insurance premium costs. Hauber says typically they plan for double-digit increases.
“Fortunately for our experience for the last actually three, almost four years now, we've been in either single-digit increases based on our insurance claims and actually a little bit of a reduction. So that was the rationale that brought this premium reduction into places. We've actually seen decreases in three of the last four years.”
Hauber clarified the state funding of the Weighted Pupil Unit, saying that there was a special session increase to restore the WPU value by 1.8% which generates new revenue for the school district. However, the legislature cut about $50,000 in programs previously funded by the state.
“The legislature also eliminated line item programs like money for U-Star and also some money for Beverly Taylor Sorenson arts program, the flexible allocation line item and the administrative line item,” he said. “When you add those reductions up, they amount to more than what the 1.8 increase is going to generate. So, we're actually in a net $50,000 loss at the end of the session on that basis. So, the programs were cut but the board had made the decision to support the programs out of local monies.”
The budget also reflects another $1.8 million in COVID-19 mitigation efforts needed to make schools safer for students and staff. It passed unanimously with no input from the public.On Wednesday, while employees and other citizens rallied outside the Park City School District offices voicing concerns over COVID-19 safety protocols, the Board of Education ratified Board of Education ratified a district-wide employee contract that will increase salaries each year over the next four.
The multi-year employee contract represents about a $2.4 million dollar budget impact for this year. The negotiations ended with a four-year agreement, that when finished, will represent an 18 to 24% increase to employee salaries. The raise is for all employee groups and will include schedule changes and step increases over the next four years.
Park City School District Business Administrator Todd Hauber explained the financing mechanism they used.
“We will be funding it with growth in assessed valuations,” he said. “That's the main funder for this over the 4-year-period. Then we also reduced our insurance premium so internally that generates the savings which we can apply towards the compensation package. And then we will dip into the reserves a little bit like we did on the three-year contract.”
Hauber says it’s the same financial structure the district put in place with the past three-year contract which ended this spring. While no truth in taxation hearing was needed to give this year’s salary increase, there will be a minimal tax increase for next year.
“What we’re projecting right now is the tax increase would be in the neighborhood of $800,000 the next year, which is, when I was running some of the numbers, that's less than $3 increase on an annual tax bill.”
This year, the budget is reflecting a reduction of $500,000 in health insurance premium costs. Hauber says typically they plan for double-digit increases.
“Fortunately for our experience for the last actually three, almost four years now, we've been in either single-digit increases based on our insurance claims and actually a little bit of a reduction. So that was the rationale that brought this premium reduction into places. We've actually seen decreases in three of the last four years.”
Hauber clarified the state funding of the Weighted Pupil Unit, saying that there was a special session increase to restore the WPU value by 1.8% which generates new revenue for the school district. However, the legislature cut about $50,000 in programs previously funded by the state.
“The legislature also eliminated line item programs like money for U-Star and also some money for Beverly Taylor Sorenson arts program, the flexible allocation line item and the administrative line item,” he said. “When you add those reductions up, they amount to more than what the 1.8 increase is going to generate. So, we're actually in a net $50,000 loss at the end of the session on that basis. So, the programs were cut but the board had made the decision to support the programs out of local monies.”
The budget also reflects another $1.8 million in COVID-19 mitigation efforts needed to make schools safer for students and staff. It passed unanimously with no input from the public.
