March 31, 2025
This evening the BEA presented initial salary proposals Unit A, Unit B and Unit C. Unit D was presented previously. We are starting in the first year of our new contracts by proposing market adjustments that ensure all educators receive a living wage and bring our certified educators into alignment with our peers in comparative districts.
Our overarching goal is to settle increases to our compensation that do more than keep up with inflation, but also recognize our merit and skill as educators. For this reason we have proposed a two part salary increase in the second and third years of our contracts. The first part of our salary increase would be a 3% increase to recognize our skill and value as educators, while the second part of our salary increase would be a true Cost of Living Adjustment (“COLA”) tied to the past year’s rate of inflation.
Since 2013, inflation in the United States has increased by 34.65%, while our salaries have fallen behind. For a Unit A member on any step other than the top, salary has increased by only 20.99% in that same period. An educator on the top step has seen a salary increase of 25.87% in the same time frame. This means that Belmont educators have LOST between 9% and 14% of our salary to inflation in the past 11 years. In addition, for 5 of those years salary increases were delayed by 90 days or more, including one year where everyone other than top step educators took a 0% salary increase. In real dollars that reflect purchasing power, we are earning substantially less today than we were a decade ago.
Over the past decade, Belmont educators have made salary concessions in order to make the town work. Between 2013 and 2021 the per capita income of the town of Belmont (meaning the average income of the taxpayers who live in town) increased by 92%. In that same period, the salary of a Unit A member not on the top step increased by only 12.35%. This means that the income of the Belmont community has increased over seven times faster than the salaries earned by the educators our community trusts with their children. We are at the table now asking for market adjustments that begin to correct these concessions and allow us to recruit and retain the educators our students deserve. The district continues to respond that there is not enough money in the town budget to support our proposals.
We are still waiting for the district to give us their financial proposals, and to let us know what they believe Belmont can afford.