State board: Schools owe teachers $300,000 in salaries

South Dakota teachers missed out on more than $300,000 in salaries this year, and a state board is asking districts to pay up. 

The School Finance Accountability Board last week found 11 school districts had violated teacher pay requirements in state law. The board asked districts to re-open contract negotiations with teachers to ensure all money intended for teacher pay is used for salaries.

The board's authority stems from a trio of bills passed in 2016. The legislation aimed to raise teacher salaries across the state by instating a half-cent sales tax increase and also outlined detailed requirements for how districts were to use 85 percent of the new money to pay teachers.

Previously:Dozens of S.D. school districts fail to meet teacher pay requirements

While the board ultimately decided teachers were shorted in those districts, they didn't see any schools intentionally trying to avoid salary increases. 

"I'm very, very confident about the intent of the people in the school districts to do everything they could to improve teacher salaries," said Terry Nebelsick, board president.

In order to avoid financial penalties, the 11 districts must increase teacher pay by Feb. 1. If those requirements are not met, districts could lose up to half of the new funding from the tax increase, a cut administrators like Garretson Superintendent Guy Johnson are hoping to avoid. 

Garretson was among the districts asked to go back and pay teachers more money. The district, which sits northeast of Sioux Falls near the Minnesota border, owes $62,000 to teacher salaries.

"If we've got to increase our spending without the revenue there, we'll solve that problem ... but that's one of the difficult pieces of this," Johnson said. "We really felt like we had done things right." 

Garretson, like many of the districts involved in last week's meeting, has seen declining enrollment in the last year. Since teacher pay targets are based on the prior year's enrollment, shrinking districts are held to an accountability based on a higher number than their actual state aid funding.

The finance board decided not to give much weight to declining enrollment in determining whether a school deserved a waiver from financial penalties. But it's an area of the law legislators may want to take a second look at, Stroeder said. 

"There's no guidance there," he said. "I felt that we were put in a tough spot there on declining enrollment and how to apply that to those different schools (requesting waivers)."

Nebelsick and board member Susan Proefrock agreed they'd like to see more discussion on the issue of declining enrollment. 

In addition to the schools asked to go back and raise teacher pay, five districts said they would have met accountability requirements if they corrected clerical errors. Those schools, including Colome Consolidated, Lemmon, Sanborn Central, Hitchcock-Tulare and Corsica-Stickney, were asked to correct errors.

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A number of districts were also granted waivers outright, meaning they did not meet accountabilities, but were be given a pass because they had a valid reason to miss target salaries. 

Those districts include Edgemont, Kadoka, Lyman, Pierre, Rosholt, Highmore-Harrold, Kimball, Henry, Gayville-Volin, Gettysburg, Faulkton Area and Bowdle.

Hoven and Lead-Deadwood school districts also failed to meet requirements, but because they don't receive any state aid, they also will not face penalties.

The School Finance Accountability Board will meet once more next week before sending a final report to the state's Joint Committee on Appropriations. 

Districts asked to pay teachers more and the amount they fell short: 

• Jones County: $11,180
• White River: $30,743
• Plankinton: $53,886
• Herreid: $7,604
• Clark: $36,866
• Willow Lake: $39,137
• Canistota: $23,406
• Wall: $27,144
• New Underwood: $22,000
• Garretson: $62,000
• Faith: $9,101