AMY SZPARA

RESERVE – The St. John the Baptist Parish School Board voted last week to hire a professional firm to survey school employee salaries and find a solution to inequities in the administrator salary schedule. When teachers in St. John Parish recently received a $1,000 a year salary raise and the promise of an additional $1,000 supplement next school year, the gap between the highest paid teachers and the lowest paid administrators narrowed, causing a need to raise administrator pay. Deloitte & Touche, a consulting firm in Houston experienced in compensation consulting, sent an engagement letter to the school board suggesting a plan to remedy the problem. The firm will conduct a surveying plan, which will cost between $13,000 and $15,000. After reviewing existing data and interviewing executive staff and board members the firm will create a compensation philosophy statement for the parish. The goal is to revise the salary schedule and outline the principles that determine salary to better serve the 900 employed in the parish school system. Though internal committees were formed, the idea of hiring a professional firm came out of a desire to keep biases outside of the project. Barbara Knight of the St. John Association of Educators asked the board to hold off hiring anyone for the study until all support personnel receive their raises. “There is a large number of people who have not gotten a raise yet. I want to settle the issue of support personnel first,” she said. Superintendent Chris Donaldson said the board plans to study the salaries of all employees, including aides and other personnel who “might be severely underpaid.” Board Member Charles Watkins also responded to Knight, saying, “We’re doing what you requested us to do. We are going with the original recommendation of the board, to conduct a survey only.” He added the board wants to get information, then at the next meeting a union representative should be present as they discuss a long-range plan. In an almost unanimous vote, the board approved using the professional firm and conducting the survey. After the compensation philosophy statement is created, the board will have the option of allowing the firm to design a revised compensation system. This would include a market study to determine how current pay in St. John compares locally and recommendations for a revised salary structure.