LPOSD offers buyout package to 8 teachers

SANDPOINT - The Lake Pend Oreille School District is offering eight teachers with longtime seniority the option of taking $20,000 each in return for an early contract buyout.

The district and the union which represents the teachers came up with the proposal in response to an anticipated $2 million-plus decrease in funding for its 2008-'09 school year.

The proposal would allow teachers to retire one year earlier than they originally planned.

“The early retirement incentive was designed to help individuals who were near retirement to financially afford to retire one year earlier and by doing so help retain teachers who would have otherwise been cut,” wrote Brian Smith, representative for the Lake Pend Oreille Education Association, in an e-mail Wednesday.

Smith is a teacher at Lake Pend Oreille High School.

The cuts are out of the district's control and are directly related to state and federal funding, Smith said.

Any time one teaching position is cut, it harms the educational process, he said.

The option, if taken by teachers, will not have an effect on the substantial funding decline anticipated for the district's 2008-'09 budget, said Supt. Dick Cvitanich.

Instead, it will help shore up the district's budget down the road and allow it to retain some of its junior teachers, he said.

LPOSD faces a potential $2 million loss in revenue related to dwindling student enrollment and what could be a possible loss of federal forest dollars and a decline in federal Title funds.

“It affects the budget eventually,” Cvitanich said.

No matter what, the district still will have to cut the positions of 15 teachers beginning July 1, he said.

It still needs to absorb that loss of teachers, but an early buyout would allow LPOSD to not cut quite so deeply into its remaining experienced, but junior staff positions.

“It keeps us from having to put all staff reductions at the early stage of career teachers,” Cvitanich said in an e-mail.

LPOSD should see a financial gain over a three-year period related to paying lower salaries of less experienced teachers and the possibility of not replacing the positions of nonessential staff, he said.

When experienced teachers at the higher end of the pay scale retire, new teachers hired by the district come in on a lower pay matrix that, over time, would shift “whole composition of the pay matrix,” he said.

For example, if eight teachers take early retirement, those teaching high needs courses like math and science positions “are likely to be filled,” while those positions that are not high needs would not be filled, allowing the district to keep on its payroll teachers with two years seniority or even a beginning teacher, Cvitanich said.

Conversely, if an elementary school teachers opts to take early retirement and the district needs to cut one position at that school, it could keep a less experienced teacher in its ranks rather than eliminating that one position.

By making these announcements early, it gives those who face losing their jobs early warning - something the district is not required contractually to do until the end of March, Smith said.

“I have greatly appreciated the district's willingness to pursue this matter aggressively,” he wrote.

In three years, the money paid to buy out those contracts is made up by the lower pay scale. The district “would end up making a little money,” Cvitanich said.

LPOSD is not sure how many certified staff will make that decision.

Idaho also offers teachers an early retirement option; however, it uses a formula to determine the buyout. That formula multiplies Idaho's base teacher salary of $24,623 times an index number based on number of years as a teacher and level of education. That number is then multiplied by the percentage based upon the teacher's age times one FTE (equivalent to one full-time teacher).

Applications for Idaho's early buyout must be postmarked on or before April 1. Applications are available at www.sde.idaho.gov/financeandtechnology/default.asp.

To be eligible for either program, teacher must have 10 years of continuous, full-time teaching in Idaho. Also to qualify, LPOSD teachers must be at least 55 and no older than 65, while Idaho teachers must be between age 55 and 62 before Sept. 1.

A teacher also could qualify for one or both early buyout packages.