Ignacio School District 11-JT employees will get a notable pay boost entering the 2024-25 calendar year.
Certified employees, which include teachers and district leadership roles, will receive a $7,000 salary raise, while classified employees such as custodial and maintenance workers and bus drivers will get a $4 bump in their hourly wages.
The base pay for teachers will now be roughly $47,000, which superintendent Chris deKay said will be about a 25% pay increase over the last three years. At that time, the base pay was about $35,500.
The base pay for classified employees will now be roughly $19 per hour across the board, according to deKay.
“We’ve spent a lot of time researching the cost of living in the area,” he said. “We value, obviously, all the work that teachers and educators do, and we need to get educators a way to where they can enter the market to be able to afford a house to live in the area, to stay in the area. We’re very motivated to do that.”
deKay said the pay boosts are also meant to help with not only retaining employees who have been with the district for a couple years or longer, but also fill vacancies and help recruit staffers at the local level.
About 60% to 70% of the money for pay raises comes from state funds, while rest comes from district budget funds.
Historically, the district allocates about 80% of its overall budget toward salaries, while the remaining 20% goes toward school curriculum and facilities. deKay said the pay raises will tweak that salary ratio to be a little more than 80%.
He said the district factored in things such as the latest housing costs and how living wages in La Plata County compared to the rest of the state.
He also said pay raises for educators have become a focus point in recent years because of continuing teacher and employee shortages, adding that schools and the state are responding to that.
“If there are vacancies, we would like to ensure that those are filled going into (the) next school year. … We want to be very efficient with our staffing as well,” he said.
mhollinshead@durangoherald.com
