Trends show teachers get perks other than raises

Each year the Utah Legislature decides how much new money to give public education. But if teachers don't get the same percent pay raises as legislators give state workers and college professors, lawmakers hear about it.

Tired of being blamed if teachers — in signing individual contracts with their school districts — get less of a salary increase than other state workers, legislators are requiring the State Office of Education to track and compile exactly where the yearly increases in public education are going.

And numbers released Tuesday at the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee show some interesting trends — like most public education employees don't contribute a dime for their health-care insurance, a benefit almost unheard of in private business.

Of the 40 districts, 25 don't ask their employees to match the health insurance premiums paid by the districts.

Most of the districts don't pay for a dental plan. But of those that do, 13 also don't charge the employees anything for the dental insurance.

(In some cases, districts do buy health and dental plans that have a deductible and/or an office visit charge for employees, officials said, even if they don't require co-premium payments.)

And a few school districts, facing higher and higher health care costs, give their teachers small or no base pay raises with the Legislature's increase in the Weighted Pupil Unit (the basic state public education funding formula). Instead, the districts pour WPU into health or dental benefits.

"It sounds like when you start talking about WPU (increases) and salaries . . . they are totally unrelated," said committee co-chairman Rep. Ron Bigelow, R-West Valley.

Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, joked at the committee meeting that maybe legislators should announce what the WPU increase amounts to each year. That way, teachers, parents and others interested in school funding wouldn't complain that teachers aren't getting the same pay raises as other state workers.

The 2005 Legislature "gave a 2.5 percent salary increase plus benefits," noted Hillyard, the Senate budget chairman.

But because school districts decided individually what to do with WPU, some school teachers will get less than 2.5 percent pay raises this fall, while a few may actually get more.

"What happens is, teachers in the classrooms . . . are getting different messages," Hillyard said.