The compensation packages of Blaine County School District administrators were published in the paper last week, and I\u2019ve heard a lot of discussion\u00a0about what people think is \u201cfair\u201d pay. I\u2019ve always said that if pay was fair, teachers would make what professional athletes make,\u00a0because there is no more important job than educating our children. Unfortunately, that\u2019s not how it works. Teachers\u2019\u00a0compensation is negotiated by the union, and administrators\u2019 two-year contracts are negotiated individually with the district.<\/p>\n
As a manager, I know that employee compensation packages need to reflect the going rate in the market. Employers must offer\u00a0more salary or benefits to keep employees if the cost of living is high or to entice an employee with more education or\u00a0experience. If the employer treats employees poorly, it can be difficult to find good employees without paying more. People tend\u00a0to leave jobs if they can earn more elsewhere, especially if a better work environment is offered.<\/p>\n
Publicly available data shows that our administrators\u2019 and teachers\u2019 salaries are comparable to those in Jackson, Aspen, Telluride\u00a0and Park City. I don\u2019t know how the compensation packages as a whole compare. This fall the BCSD board of trustees has the\u00a0responsibility to carefully research and review administrators\u2019 compensation packages. I urge them to tackle this review the way\u00a0most employers do, by basing the packages they offer on what administrators with similar levels of experience in comparable\u00a0communities and districts are paid. I urge them to consider both our budget constraints and our desire to have qualified,\u00a0experienced administrators running the district. I believe having quality leaders is best for our teachers and, most importantly, for\u00a0our students.<\/p>\n
So far three out of four candidates interested in the business manager position have changed their minds and withdrawn their\u00a0applications after researching our district. The divisiveness of the board and the persistent, hostile actions of a vocal segment of\u00a0our community are now impeding the district\u2019s ability to hire quality staff. In addition, this group has submitted an unprecedented\u00a080-plus public records requests and has just filed a lawsuit requesting an administrator\u2019s phone records and complaining about the\u00a0fee the district charges for extensive public records requests. I fail to see how these time-consuming and expensive actions\u00a0benefit the needs of our students.<\/span><\/p>\n Even if opinions differ, there are ways to support and improve our district without tearing it apart. Let\u2019s work together and focus\u00a0on educating our children.<\/p>\n Lara Stone<\/b><\/p>\n Blaine County resident<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The compensation packages of Blaine County School District administrators were published in the paper last week, and I\u2019ve heard a lot of discussion\u00a0about what people think is \u201cfair\u201d pay. I\u2019ve always said that if pay was fair, teachers would make what professional athletes make,\u00a0because there is no more important job than educating our children. Unfortunately, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-letters-to-the-editor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}