Sharing a Facebook post from our friends at Johnson County Educators

THE TRUTH ABOUT JOHNSON COUNTY TEACHER SALARIES

Last week we shared news articles quoting comments made by Sen. Jeff Melcher of Leawood concerning teacher pay. Melcher is quoted saying, “It’s actually a pretty good living. I look at the two districts that I represent, and the average compensations are pretty spectacular in comparison to a lot of other vocations.” The day after he made these comments, Sen. Melcher further commented in an Education Committee meeting that the average teacher salary in the Shawnee Mission School District is $67K and $57K in the Blue Valley School District. He also asked the press to follow up on these figures. We haven’t seen anything in the press yet, so we decided to do our own follow-up and have determined that Sen. Melcher is providing very misleading information.

The “average salary” numbers that Sen. Melcher is quoting are easily found on the school districts’ websites in the “Budget-at-a-Glance” documents. What Sen. Melcher doesn’t tell you is that the amount he is quoting is for “total salary” which includes things like supplemental pay for additional jobs such as coaching, summer school, and before and after-school tutoring. It even includes compensation for unused sick days. The other thing that Sen. Melcher doesn’t tell you is that it also includes all employer-paid fringe benefits such as health, life, and disability income insurance. Those benefits total approximately $6700 in Shawnee Mission and are about the same in Blue Valley. A more accurate “average salary” for Johnson County school districts would require a deduction of about $6700 from the figures quoted by Sen. Melcher. You may remember that Gov. Brownback created quite the controversy last year when he said that the average Kansas teacher salary exceeded the average for Missouri. He was widely chastised for comparing apples to oranges as Kansas includes benefits in its calculation and Missouri does not. Sen. Melcher is attempting to spread the same misinformation.

Now that we have a more accurate average salary, let’s dig a little deeper. A true average salary of approximately $60K in Shawnee Mission requires a minimum of a Master’s degree and 13 years of teaching experience. By comparison, the average teacher salary for the Park Hill School District in suburban Kansas City on the Missouri side is $62,570 (without benefits). The average salary for Lee’s Summit, MO teachers is $59,430 (without benefits). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2014 Wage Estimates for the Greater Kansas City Metropolitan Area, average teacher salaries range by position from $47,880 to $56,730 (without benefits). The BLS categorizes teachers according to level and certain specializations, so we’re sharing the information as a range. The most recent average teacher salary for Missouri was $48,483 (without benefits) and $48,413 (without benefits) in Kansas. Teachers on both sides of the state line in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area generally earn more than the averages for their respective states. The average salary for St. Louis area teachers exceeds the Kansas City area average. It is interesting to note that the average salary for ALL occupations in the Kansas City area is $46,800.

To quote Sen. Melcher, “It’s actually a pretty good living. I look at the two districts that I represent, and the average compensations are pretty spectacular in comparison to a lot of other vocations.” We decided to look more closely at the Bureau of Labor Statistics salary averages for other “vocations” in the Kansas City area. We found that the average salary range for the educator group falls squarely between the “installation, maintenance, and repair occupations” and the “construction and extraction occupations.” Most of the vocations in these two categories are skilled trades, and we recognize the demands of these jobs and believe those workers deserve every penny they earn. Most of these jobs require specialized training and many involve an “apprentice” period. Few, however, require a college degree and certainly not a Master’s.

So why do we think Sen. Melcher is mischaracterizing Johnson County teachers’ salaries? It’s difficult to comprehend why any elected official would want to imply that the hard-working teachers of his district are overpaid, but that does seem to be his message. In recent days we’ve heard from teachers in rural Kansas that they wish they made our salaries. We believe THAT type of questioning is precisely part of Sen. Melcher’s motivation. It’s much easier to cut education funding if a sizable number of Kansas taxpayers think many teachers are overpaid.

In order to weigh whether Johnson County educators are spectacularly compensated, we examined cost of living data for the two cities in Sen. Melcher’s Senate District 11. We consulted Sperling’s Best Places and discovered that the state of Kansas has a cost of living that is 11.2% lower than the U.S. average. The median home price in Kansas is $129,700. The cost of living in Overland Park is 16.8% HIGHER than the U.S. average, and the median home price of $258,400 is considerably higher than the U.S median of $188,900. Leawood, which is where Sen. Melcher resides, has a cost of living that is 35.1% HIGHER than the U.S average. The median home price is $355,400, almost double the national median. The income per capita, which includes all adults and children, is $71,676. We’d be more accurate in stating that a Leawood child earns more than his/her teacher than Sen. Melcher has been in his characterization of Johnson County teacher salaries.

Please take time to examine the facts. Don’t believe the spin presented by those who work to undermine your public schools.