2009-2010 State Salary Schedules

The Markell Administration's proposed 8% salary cut for all state employees, plus three furloughdays became five furlough days and a temporary 2.5% salary reduction for all state employees - thanks to the hard work of all of the members of State Workers United for a Better Delaware, a new coalition of 13 state employee unions. Read the language passed by the General Assembly here.

The one exception are school bus drivers. They are paid from state Transportation Funds. That section of the state budget was reduced 2%. Our Colonial Transporation Association members, and the school bus driver members of Capital Support Staff Assoc. and the Cape Henlopen Support Staff Association will be keeping an eye on their salary schedules for any attempts by their districts to reduce them. Their days, of course, are student days, so will not be affected by the five day furlough.

The salary schedules presented here (by clicking on the links to the left) reflect that 2.5% decrease. This decrease is temporary, set to revert to the 08-09 levels next year. For people who retire at the end of 2010, there retirement income will be based on the 08-09 schedule, not the reduced 09-10 schedule.

   The 2.5% pay reduction will be spread out in all of your pay periods, and in exchange, employees will take five leave/furlough days. In other words, instead of receiving less pay, but working the same amount of time, the work year has been cut five days to compensate for the loss of pay.
   For teachers and specialists, the five days will come from professional development days. Instead of working 188 days, they will work 185 days: 180 student days, with one professional development day, and two days for opening and closing. The five furlough days are to come from professional development days.
   Other unionized school and state employees will chose their five days through a plan worked out between their local union and school district or state agency.
   For state employees who are not part of a union, their "...Cabinet Secretary, Agency Head and/or Other Elected Official shall submit for approval a plan that provides for five days of leaving during FY2010."
   All plans, including those for which we reach concensus, must then be submitted to the Secretary of Education (for school district employees), the Director of Office of Management and Budget, and the Comptroller General for approval and implementation.

It is clear that there are several options for determining the five days:

• Shortening the school year by five days for teachers, specialists, instructional paras....
• Moving the five teacher/specialist professional development days to Fridays or Mondays;
• For 12-month school employees, taking the five days during summer, Winter Break or Spring break so that buildings could be closed and save additional dollars
• For agency and ESP employees, taking days together, at the same time, or not taking them together but as you would vacation days (teachers cannot do this).

If you have opinions on this, please contact your local association leaders and let them know.

What about the local share of our salary? Is it cut by 2.5% as well?

For those of you who negotiate an additional local salary, DSEA’s position is that the funds for your local salary have already been negotiated and the funds are available.  As with the furlough days, this subject is a topic of discussion with your administration. The outcomes vary considerably. Check with your local association leadership for the status of your furlough days and your local share of salary.

Click on the links to the left to view the state portion of salary schedules for public school employees represented by DSEA.
Missing is a state schedule for Transportation Workers. There is no such schedule: school districts that employ their own bus drivers create their own pay scale using funds they receive from the state budget's Transportation funding. Our local bus driver unions do, of course, bargain what those salary schedules will be.

As merit employees, the public health nurses and nurses at the Delaware Hospital for the Chronically Ill, will receive also be subject to five furlough days and a 2.5% salary cut. In addition, as merit employees, two of their holidays, Columbus Day and Presidents Day, are now normal working days. If called upon to work on those days, they will not receive holiday pay, but will be able to take another furlough day.

Our Special Schools members, who are employed by the Dept. of Children, Youth and their Families (the Kids Dept.) are 12-month employees and are paid based on the state teacher salary schedule. That schedule is pro-rated from a ten-month to a 12-month schedule for them. They also will discuss five furlough days with their department management.