District 158 freezes pay for non-union staff

Nonunion employees in Huntley Unit District 158, including nearly all administrators, will not receive pay increases next year.

The District 158 school board voted last week to freeze salaries for nonunion staff during the 2010-11 school year, including about 30 administrators and more than 40 central office staffers.

While it is difficult to quantify how much money the freeze saves, nonunion employees received more than $147,000 in additional compensation this year, according to the district.

"Based upon what we'll be able to have in terms of revenues, we have to stay flat with salaries," said Lauren Smith, District 158's outgoing director of human resources. "This was another way to keep the costs down."

The district is also hoping to freeze salaries for members of the Huntley Educational Support Personnel Association, which represents bus drivers, custodians, secretaries, teacher aides and other support staff.

While District 158 administrators are still meeting with union leaders, the school board already has approved a tentative budget for next year that assumes support staff salaries will be frozen.

"The board, by passing its budget, has zero increase in there, and in light of the budget situation that's what we're working toward," board Vice President Mike Skala said, declining to comment on the progress of negotiations.

The support staff union's three-year contract expires at the end of this month, although that is not a hard deadline because salary changes wouldn't take effect until the beginning of the 2010-11 school year.

The district paid support staff about $300,000 more this year, according to the district.

The freeze for nonunion employees does not specifically apply to administrators who are on a separate contract, namely Superintendent John Burkey, Associate Superintendent Terry Awrey and Chief Financial Officer Mark Altmayer.

However, Burkey and Altmayer will have their salaries frozen next year under the terms of their contracts, while Awrey is not guaranteed an increase in his performance-based contract, Smith said.

Including benefits, compensation for teachers in District 158 is set to rise by more than 5.25 percent next year, the third and final year of their current contract.