Classified staff wants same raise as teachers

TOPPENISH -- Classified workers want the same wage increase that the state required for teachers and that is now blamed for a budget crunch in the Toppenish School District.

Classified employees are maintenance, food service, transportation and office workers. There are about 180 classified workers in the Toppenish School District.

After teachers received a 5.13 percent cost-of-living raise this year, classified workers wanted the same increase. The school district has offered them a 4.4 percent raise. The two parties are still in negotiations.

School officials said giving class-ified workers the same increase as teachers would be tough for a district that this year had to cut about $700,000 in expenses from its roughly $35 million operating budget.

Salary step increases for all administrators were frozen, and two vacant teacher positions were left unfilled, said Dave Andrews, the school district's business manager.

A math director and tech director, both administrative positions, also were cut and a contract for a drug and alcohol counselor wasn't renewed, he said.

While the state mandates raises, it only pays about 70 percent of teachers' salaries and only 30 percent of wages for classified workers in the district, Andrews said.

"When they pass salary increases, we don't always have the revenue to give those raises," he said. "We have to find other ways to give those raises."

But Stacy Na Varre, a field representative for Public School Employees of Washington, a union representing the classified workers, said most of the classified workers are in their final steps of pay increases and that the school district could afford the increases.

"It's only about a $35,000 difference," she said.

She also said while step increases were frozen for administrators, they received the same cost-of-living raise that teachers did.

* Phil Ferolito can be reached at 577-7749 or pferolito@yakimaherald.com.

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