By Bill Zettler
Music Teacher Pulls Down $189,434.
Number of $100,000 School Salaries Up 10% To 12,438 In 2009.
As Illinois citizens struggle with the severe economic downturn plaguing the state, Illinois public school employees enjoy another record year of salaries, fringe benefits and pensions. See “Top 100 Teachers Salaries.”
Apparently there is no tax money for the barren shelves at food pantries or the lack of beds at homeless shelters or to extend unemployment benefits but there is enough tax money to pay:
- An Instrumental Music teacher $189,434 for a 9 month work year.
- A Phys-ed teacher over $1,000/day to watch freshmen do push ups.
- A second-grade teacher $17,000/month to teach coloring between the lines.
- A Drivers-ed teacher $130/hr to teach teenagers how to parallel park.
- Five teachers more than $20,000/mo.
- 4,706 Teachers more than the average family MD ($11,779/mo).
And all of that is for a 36-week work-year.
These Top 100 Salaries Do Not Include Massive Amounts of Fringe Benefits.
Add about $48,000 each for state pension contribution (30% of salary) and at least $15,000/yr health insurance benefits. Then include 15 days sick leave payable at retirement if not used, 2 personal days/yr and up to $300,000 payment to the Teachers Retirement System by the local school district if they decide to take early retirement (see “Anatomy of a Teachers Contract” here).
And what is the value of a guaranteed $100,000 job (called “Tenure”) for as long as you want it?
If we add all these benefits to salaries in order to determine “total compensation” then the Total Compensation for every one of “Top 100 Teacher Salaries” (see here) exceeds $200,000/year. We could stock a lot of food pantries with that kind of cash.
Rather than pay $200/hr for teachers why not hire full-time consultants?
What was your favorite subject in school? Here’s a short list by subject I found interesting. Notice when we add in the cost of fringe benefits (not including tenure) to come up with a “Total Compensation” amount we have some teachers making $200/hr.
| Teacher Compensation By Subject Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 2009 | ||||||||||
| The Following Are All Paid For By The Taxpayer For The Benefit of the Teacher: | ||||||||||
|
Subject |
Number w/salaries $100k |
High Salary |
Pension 29.99% See NOTE 1 |
OPEB 11.25% See NOTE 2 |
Fringes – Insur. See NOTE 3 |
Total Compensation |
Rate per Work-Day See NOTE 4 |
Cost/hr 8 hour Work-Day |
||
| Music |
231 |
189,433 |
56,811 |
21,311 |
6,500 |
274,055 |
1,612 |
202 |
||
| Speech |
92 |
189,247 |
56,755 |
21,290 |
6,500 |
273,792 |
1,611 |
201 |
||
| Phys Ed |
591 |
184,028 |
55,190 |
20,703 |
6,500 |
266,421 |
1,567 |
196 |
||
| Librarians |
111 |
179,467 |
53,822 |
20,190 |
6,500 |
259,979 |
1,529 |
191 |
||
| Drive Ed |
132 |
167,351 |
50,189 |
18,827 |
6,500 |
242,867 |
1,429 |
179 |
||
| Consumer Econ |
29 |
166,443 |
49,916 |
18,725 |
6,500 |
241,584 |
1,421 |
178 |
||
| Dance |
16 |
164,490 |
49,331 |
18,505 |
6,500 |
238,826 |
1,405 |
176 |
||
| Drama |
24 |
163,239 |
48,955 |
18,364 |
6,500 |
237,059 |
1,394 |
174 |
||
| Auto Repair |
24 |
162,119 |
48,619 |
18,238 |
6,500 |
235,477 |
1,385 |
173 |
||
| English |
430 |
161,796 |
48,523 |
18,202 |
6,500 |
235,021 |
1,382 |
173 |
||
| Clothing/Apparel |
7 |
153,973 |
46,177 |
17,322 |
6,500 |
223,971 |
1,317 |
165 |
||
| Art |
145 |
146,890 |
44,052 |
16,525 |
6,500 |
213,967 |
1,259 |
157 |
||
| French |
40 |
142,813 |
42,830 |
16,066 |
6,500 |
208,209 |
1,225 |
153 |
||
| Latin |
8 |
138,378 |
41,500 |
15,568 |
6,500 |
201,945 |
1,188 |
148 |
||
| Foodservice |
15 |
126,176 |
37,840 |
14,195 |
6,500 |
184,711 |
1,087 |
136 |
||
| Average Comp For $100K Salary |
100,000 |
29,990 |
11,250 |
6,500 |
147,740 |
869 |
109 |
|||
| SOURCES: | ||||||||||
| Salaries from ISBE, Teacher Service Records year Ending 6/30/09 | ||||||||||
| NOTE 1: From CGFA (Commission on Gov’t Forecasting and Accountability) Actuarial Evaluation 9/30/09 | ||||||||||
| NOTE 2: OPEB (Other Post Employment Benefits) per GASB 43, 45 | ||||||||||
| NOTE 2: Includes Amortization of $24B Unfunded OPEB Liability (Retiree Healthcare) | ||||||||||
| NOTE 2: Using Chi School District Actuarial – State Calculation Nonexistent | ||||||||||
| NOTE 3: Life, Health, and Disability Insurance Paid At the Local District level, estimated from ISBE. | ||||||||||
| NOTE 4: Work-Days Calc: 182 Day Contract less 2 personal days, 10 sick leave days = 170 work days | ||||||||||
Why do taxpayers have to pay these outrageous salaries and benefits?
Since the purpose of taxes is to “provide for the common good”, please explain to me what common good is “provided for” by making public employees millionaires. I would suggest that school districts that can afford to pay compensation of this magnitude should be paying for their own pensions rather than throwing it on the backs of all the state taxpayers. Doing that would save the state $1.6 billion a year. We cannot control teacher pensions unless we control teachers’ salaries.
It’s time to end robbing the poor taxpayer and giving it to rich public employees.
Bill Zettler is a free-lance writer and consultant specializing in public sector compensation. He can be contacted at this email address. Click here to read more by Mr. Zettler.
