When it comes to teachers' salaries, Carroll County has kicked the proverbial can down the road for far too long. The lack of competitive pay has led to teachers leaving the county in record numbers for jobs in neighboring jurisdictions, school officials have argued.
The numbers seem to back up their claims, with 102 teachers leaving before the past school year and a similar number expected this coming year, though that number has not been made public by school officials.
We'll take some solace that the teachers union, the county commissioners and the county school board say they want to offer competitive salaries. Negotiations between the teachers union and the school board are expected to start this fall. These negotiations are building on a positive first step as new, first-year teachers will receive a higher starting salary when it will rise from $40,400 to $43,000 this school year. While we applaud this step, it does nothing to keep teachers who are already here. And that's a much bigger problem.
It's the teachers already working in the system who deserve a raise. Without taking care of the more-experienced teachers by providing step — experience — increases, we've built a system that will never attract good teachers to stay beyond a few years. To illustrate this point, first-year teachers will make $43,000 next year, the same as a teacher with a bachelor's degree and five years of experience because of the current salary schedule. The disparity is due to the county falling behind in providing those step increases. To put this in perspective, while a rookie teacher in Carroll will make more than a rookie teacher in Frederick County, a teacher with five years of experience will make about $2,000 less annually in Carroll than Frederick.
For the county to play catch-up with the missed step increases, it would cost about $25 million more annually, according to Christopher Hartlove, chief financial offer for the school system. It would be unrealistic to think that the county could take on that kind of budget addition in one year. But efforts have to be made to provide a more-competitive salary or more experienced teachers could leave.
On the county's side, though, we have to define "competitive." Carroll County schools are most likely never going to be able to pay teacher salaries that are on par with more-affluent counties such as Montgomery or Howard. The tax base just isn't the same here. Counties such as Frederick and Harford might be better comparisons.
As much as we'd like to see this matter corrected quickly, it's going to take a gradual approach to fix the problem, much like it took a gradual decline to create it. We're feeling better now that the issue is getting the attention it deserves. But only time will tell if the county can do the right thing for its teachers.