Report shows local teachers’ pay

By Harold Gwin

No Mahoning Valley schools are among the top 25 in terms of starting or maximum salaries.

YOUNGSTOWN — Only a handful of the 48 public schools in the tri-county area offered starting teacher salaries above the state average in 2007-08.

A few more exceeded the average maximum salary level paid to teachers at the top of their pay scales across Ohio, according to a report prepared by the Ohio Education Association, the union representing 130,000 educators in the state.

Canfield, Howland, Mahoning County Career & Technical Center, Poland, and Trumbull Career & Technical Center offered a starting salary above the state average of $30,965 for a new teacher with a bachelor’s degree.

Austintown, Boardman, Girard, Joseph Badger, Lordstown, MCCTC, Poland, Struthers and TCTC all offered top salaries to their most experienced and most highly educated teachers that were higher than the state top salary average of $65,651.

None of the local schools were among the top 25 in the state in either the starting or maximum salary categories, which saw a top starting salary of nearly $42,000 in Beachwood City and a maximum reaching just over $97,000 in Aurora City schools.

Several local schools — Bloomfield-Mespo, Southern and Wellsville — were in the bottom 25 in the starting salary category with the very lowest starting salary in the state at $21,016 in a Southern Local School District in Racine, Ohio, in Meigs County.

Richard Scarsella, president of the MCCTC board, said the school is aware that it offers some of the highest salaries in the tri-county area.

He believes the technical school is such a hybrid and requires the highest level of expertise that higher salaries are warranted to attract top people.

The teachers there are very highly trained personnel in areas where high schools don’t normally teach, Scarsella said, pointing out that it can be difficult to find licensed, certified professionals for the programs MCCTC offers.

The theory has been to treat the educators as well as possible to help with the retention rate, he said.

Higher salaries are a “socioeconomic demographic,” said Dr. Robert Zorn, Poland superintendent, noting that Poland has been in the top three in the tri-county area in teacher salaries, “for as long as I remember.”

“It’s all part of the total package,” Zorn said, explaining that Poland’s excellent academic record helps attract top teaching applicants.

More affluent districts pay more, historically, he added.

Dante Zambrini, Canfield superintendent, said suburban schools in the tri-county area may be at the top of the local salary scale, but they’re well below suburban schools near Ohio’s large urban areas of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati.

“I have lost candidates to those suburbs,” he said, explaining that people have chosen to go where more money is being offered.

The money may be better, but the costs of living also are higher. Housing, for example, is significantly higher in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus.

The average selling price of homes in the Youngstown area was just over $93,000 in June, as compared with $151,000 in the greater Cleveland area, $169,000 in the Cincinnati area and $180,000 in the Columbus area, according to Realtor associations in those regions.

Canfield does need a competitive teacher rate, but must also be frugal with its finances, Zambrini said.

The district’s academic success has been a favorable factor in attracting teaching candidates, he said, pointing out that it is the people who have invested time and money in securing additional education over the years who reach the highest levels of the salary scale.

There was a time — 30 to 35 years ago — when the local urban areas such as Youngstown, Campbell and Sebring were at the top of the local teacher salary scale, Zambrini said. That’s when steel mills and other large manufacturing operations were flourishing and the districts weren’t suffering financially.

The closing of those big manufacturers hurt the urban schools economically, and local suburban districts gradually moved past urban schools on the scale, he said.

Youngstown remains the largest school district in the tri-county area, but its teacher salary scale is down the list. Twenty-three of the 48 local schools offer a higher starting salary and 12 offer higher maximum salaries.

The Youngstown schools have been in state-declared fiscal emergency since November 2006, and the teachers were in the second year of a four-year base-salary wage freeze last year.

Youngstown hasn’t been near the top of the local salary scale for a long time, said Will Bagnola, president of the Youngstown Education Association, the union representing the district’s teachers.

Bagnola said Youngstown teachers have been willing to forgo some of the higher raises that others in the area got, largely because the city schools have had a good benefits package.

That has eroded somewhat, however, in the last round of negotiations, which saw teachers agreeing to pick up an average of 5 percent of their health-care costs, he said.

The teachers are certainly aware of the district’s financial condition and the fact that voters have three times turned down a 9.5-mill tax levy the school board says is needed to overcome a budget deficit, Bagnola said, adding that they are dedicated to their profession and don’t complain much about their status on the local salary scale.

gwin@vindy.com