WEST BEND — The West Bend School Board on Monday unanimously approved 2022-23 compensation increases for eligible certified staff, support staff, administrators, food service staff, coaches and co-curricular staff with the West Bend School District.
Each year the WBSD engages in collective bargaining negotiations over base wages with the West Bend Education Association. The WBSD administration recently engaged in multiple negotiation sessions with the WBEA regarding certified staff base wages for the 2022-23 school year.
Lenny Hanson, director of human services with WBSD, and Andrew Sarnow, the district’s assistant superintendent of finance and operations, spoke about the results of those negotiations with the school board. They said the negotiations this year did not result in a full agreement between the WBSD and the WBEA and recommended that the board declare an impasse to those negotiations and move to consider pay increases proposed by the school district.
On the recommendation of Hanson and Sarnow, the board moved to declare an impasse to those negotiations. The board then moved forward with voting on compensation increases proposed by the school district for the current year.
Consideration of salary and wage increases came later than usual this year, but the school district wanted to do a deep analysis of the current budget and future budgets before moving forward with compensation increases, according to Hanson and Sarnow. The proposed raises are part of planned balanced budgets for this year and next.
The board voted to approve pay raises for eligible certified staff, support staff, administrators, food service staff, coaches and co-curricular staff. The raises only apply to eligible staff who had not already received increases as part of the 2022-23 marketing analysis, approved by the board in August of last year, or as part of the coach compensation model adopted in July of last year.
Wage increases
Eligible athletics, co-curricular employees and support staff will receive a 3.5 percent wage increase. Eligible administrators would receive a 3 percent salary increase. Food service staff will receive hourly wage increases between 60 cents and 90 cents, depending on their position. Eligible certified staff making below $75,000 will see a salary increase of $2,200, and those making above $75,000 will see a salary increase of $1,400.
The approved raises will be retroactively applied back to the start of the current fiscal year, July 2022.
The next West Bend School Board meeting will be on Monday, Feb. 20.
