By Bruce Wallace

As the Southern Boone Board of Education prepares to put the puzzle pieces together for a new district budget for 2017-18, some veteran teachers would like for them to think about veteran teachers – not just adding new salaries to the budget.

A salary committee of about a dozen teachers met last Tuesday with Felmlee to discuss veteran teacher pay as well as their concerns for a competing wage for specialists in the district.

“There are some veteran teachers who feel under-appreciated,” said Kelci Weter, leader of the Community Teachers Association (CTA). “We would like to have a more competitive salary compared to other conference schools and also (compared to) Columbia and Jefferson City.”

Weter says that a salary freeze eight years ago put teachers behind in pay step increases. Weter said she would like to see the district set some parameters and specific goals. “I don’t think just adding to the base is going to allow us to grow in the direction of being more competitive,” Weter said.

Felmlee said was looking to work through the issues with teachers on an individual basis.

“We have several issues that we discussed,” said Superintendent Chris Felmlee. “There was a salary freeze in the 09-10 budget and the next year there were two salary schedules merged in order to get everyone on a similar schedule. In doing so, they created a “zero” step, which I had not seen before. What you have now is an imbalance between your years of service and your actual pay step.”

SoBoCo teachers are currently contracted for 182 days, but that will change to 180 next year. Felmlee said he is working to budget a $500 increase to the teacher salary base.