Jordan District may reconsider pay hikes for board members

At least two Jordan School Board members want to reconsider their controversial pay raise.

Board members Ellen Wallace and Peggy Jo Kennett say they'd like the board to review its July 10 vote, which quadrupled board members' pay to $12,000 a year, provides for pay to increase with the annual cost of living and allows them to cash out more than $17,000 worth of annual insurance benefits.

"Several would like to reconsider," Wallace said. "We've heard from our patrons and our teachers, and I think there's not any reason to not rethink ... and change some of the things we're doing."

The main issue is the insurance cash-out, "and I feel that's the area we ought to reconsider," Kennett said.

Board President J. Dale Christensen confirmed Friday that Wallace had approached him about the issue. But he was uncertain whether the matter would make it to the Aug. 7 board meeting agenda.

"We're still in the discussion stage about what we're going to do, or what any one person might do," he said. "I'm in the process right now, in communication with all my board members, to get a feel of the direction we want to go, if we want to go in any direction (on that matter) at all."

Not all board members would like to reconsider the action.

"We really wanted to set the board up to be a strong part-time board rather than a volunteer board, and we thought this (compensation change) was a good way to accomplish that objective" for Jordan and other boards that wanted to follow suit, said board member Kim Horiuchi.

"I take exception with efforts to paint us as selfish, because that was not the reasoning behind this at all," she said. "We already have paid a high price by voting 7-0 trying to accomplish this. My fear is reconsidering will take all that effort away."

School board members statewide have earned about $3,000 a year for about a decade.

But a new state law now lets those boards set their own compensation and allows members to participate in the district's health insurance plan, with the option for those who don't want or need the insurance to take a cash payment instead, Christensen said.

The Jordan board's decision allowed for each member to make more than $29,000 a year for board service.

The idea was to bring board compensation of $12,000 a year closer to those of city councils and other local government leaders and link it to the Consumer Price Index so compensation would not have to be revisited by future boards. Christensen said the board discussed the matter a few times, examined research and did not make the decision lightly.

But the decision was explosive — mainly, Kennett and Wallace say, over the insurance cash-out, even though tax dollars have been paying the same amount for board members' insurance benefits for years. The district office's phone lines lit up for days from residents furious over the action, spokeswoman Melinda Colton has said.

The Jordan board was the first in the state to raise members' pay. Alpine and Washington boards of education leaders have said they are looking into the matter. The Provo Board of Education has looked into it but decided not to pursue it further.

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