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Janesville school employee pay hikes pondered

JANESVILLE — A Janesville School Board committee will consider raising the pay for non-union staff when it meets tonight.

A memo from Superintendent Karen Schulte calls for a 3 percent raise for the 113 employees.

All the employees who do not have "performance concerns" would get a 1.5 percent raise. The rest of the money would be used as a reward for meeting or exceeding goals or to increase the pay of computer-support workers whose jobs are being reclassified to account for their duties.

"Employees whose salaries are not commensurate with their duties will seek employment elsewhere," Schulte predicted in her memo.

The increases would cost $193,866 this year. The total salaries for all 113 employees would cost $6.65 million.

This employee group includes principals and other administrators, nurses, food-service workers, social workers, physical therapy assistants, confidential secretaries, interpreters, youth mentors and family resource center workers.

This group had its pay frozen in 2009-10 but got a 2.75 percent raise last year. Last year's raises were distributed in similar fashion to what Schulte is proposing this year: a 2.25 percent base increase, with the remaining 0.5 percent used for performance pay and dollar increases for kitchen managers and physical therapy assistants.

The non-represented employees in August began paying 5.8 percent of their salaries to their pension fund, as required by the recently passed law affecting public employees.

The district's unionized employees do not have to make the pension payments because they are protected by their contracts until the contracts run out in June 2013.

The board approved the teachers' contract last year at this time and the contracts of two other union groups last winter, giving all those groups raises.

IF YOU GO

The personnel/policy/legislative/curriculum committee of the Janesville School Board meets at 6 p.m. today at the Educational Services Center 527, S. Franklin St.

Agenda items include:

-- Establishment of a district grievance procedure, as required by Wisconsin Act 10.

-- A proposed revision to rules that govern corporal punishment, in accordance with state statutes, to allow "reasonable and necessary force under specific conditions."

-- Discussion of the district's teacher-evaluation system.