We saw their anguished faces. We heard their frustrated voices.
Long-suffering teachers pleaded with the Broward County School Board on Tuesday to give them, at long last, a meaningful pay raise, and fast, so they can afford to make their mortgage and rent payments, feed their families and pay their skyrocketing property and car insurance premiums.
The calls for help, over and over, came at the first of two school budget hearings in Fort Lauderdale.
The teachers’ sense of desperation is totally understandable. But in America’s sixth-largest school district, nothing happens quickly.
As the school district’s chief budget expert observed, it was the ninth time since January that the board has publicly discussed next year’s budget. Nine times? By now, they should know all the budget numbers by heart.
That should be adequate time for the board, so closely divided on so many issues, to reach common ground on how to adequately compensate teachers, principals and assistant principals — especially since a clear consensus already exists in the community.
The voters came through
As we noted recently, nearly six out of 10 Broward voters passed a property tax increase a year ago in a countywide referendum, with three-fourths of the money earmarked for employee salaries.
The School Board rightly made it a priority, and voters agreed. A year later, teachers are still waiting.
Extending that tax for four more years, and expanding it from $50 to $100 for each $100,000 of assessed property value, will produce much more money next year, thanks in part to an astounding 13% year-to-year growth in property values in Broward.
The district projects it will receive $83 million more next year from that school property tax.
At the same time, some teachers said, they can’t afford to even rent an apartment in Broward. There were stories of homeless teachers forced to live in their cars or pay $3,200 a month in rent for an apartment in Hollywood. Teachers spoke of feeling ignored, disrespected and taken for granted by the district that employs them and claims to care so much about them.
‘People are hungry’
Cindy Burdick’s voice broke as she described co-workers in Pompano Beach, no longer able to make ends meet.
“Our employees need resources and I can’t help them anymore,” said Burdick, a guidance counselor. “I’ve given all I can, to the point where my kids are saying to me, ‘Mommy, stop bringing the food into school.’ People are hungry. People have no housing.”
“We cannot wait until January,” Burdick pleaded with board members. “Please do not wait until January. We can’t make it.”
After 35 years in the classroom, teacher Katrina Whittaker said: “We are begging. Please, please, please … We love teaching, and that’s why we’re here.”
Entering her 21st year as an instructor working with students with disabilities, Dr. Alexandra Alvarez told board members, she is barely making $61,500 a year, the base salary for a starting teacher in the Florida Keys.
‘How embarrassing’
“How embarrassing and unacceptable,” Alvarez said. “This should also be unacceptable to you as School Board members.”
Incremental pay increases in recent years have not nearly kept pace with the skyrocketing cost of living. As everyone knows, South Florida is one of the most expensive metropolitan areas in the country.
The school district and the Broward Teachers Union are still in the midst of negotiations on a new contract. A bureaucratic complication is that the School Board will likely have to give final approval to its new $3.1 billion operating budget before talks conclude on a new contract.
As the Sun Sentinel has reported, board member Allen Zeman’s plan to raise teachers’ minimum salaries and benefits to $100,000 recently failed on a 5-4 vote because some board members opposed a budget-balancing set of budget cuts to pay for it.
On Tuesday, Superintendent Peter Licata was directed to find 27 unfilled administrative positions to eliminate to find needed savings. “There’s a lot we can do,” Licata said.
The second, final school budget hearing is Sept. 12. The School Board must make this a higher priority. It would help if hundreds of teachers show up at the second hearing.
“We have to stop telling our teachers and our other staff that ‘It’s coming,'” said board member Debra Hixon, a former teacher. “But we would have a bottom number that they know they’re going to get at least this much.”
That would be a start — and not a moment too soon.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at .
