Members of Lake Washington Educational Support Personnel (LWESP) rallied outside the Lake Washington School District (LWSD) Resource Center on Feb. 6, requesting “a living wage” and protesting against a so-called “death lane provision” in their employment contracts.

In a press release, past LWESP president and current bargaining support chairwoman Sheila Nokes asked, “How do Lake Washington school support staff get a raise? Somebody has to die. … Or at least walk away from their job in the middle of a recession. … How has this archaic, ridiculous contract provision survived into the 21st century?”

The group has been bargaining for nearly a year for at least a 10 percent wage increase. Some members say that still wouldn’t constitute a “living wage” in this economy and in this community.

In the week following their rally, three LWESP spokespeople described their jobs, extra duties they’ve taken on, how much they earn and why they believe they deserve a raise — even in a recession.

We also requested clarification from the LWSD about the pay “lanes” and what might or might not be done to satisfy support personnel’s requests for wage increases.

ERIN ASHLEY

Erin Ashley is the secretary at the Renaissance School of Art and Reasoning, a LWSD Choice school on the campus of Eastlake High School in Sammamish.

“I’m the only secretary at the school … with 90 students … and I wear all the hats,” said Ashley.

She said her job entails tracking attendance, answering e-mails and phone calls from parents and vendors, managing the payroll and school budget, purchasing supplies, overseeing lunchroom issues, responding to health room calls “such as a child with a breathing emergency,” processing applications, registering or withdrawing students, ordering buses for field trips and collecting permission slips. She’s also required to attend monthly training meetings.

Ashley has had this job for three years, earning $15.82 per hour for the duration.

“The first year, I didn’t have the financial (management) responsibilities. Now I have the ASB budget and purchasing,” she noted. “What we’d like to see is members to make a living wage. Many of us are sole wage earners for our families. … The demands are constant and so are the expectations to maintain and upgrade a cutting-edge school district. We have expectations that our kids should be at the top, yet our salaries don’t reflect that.”

We asked Ashley what she’d recommend cutting to provide raises for school support personnel — knowing that a public input process identified “retaining good teachers” and “avoiding increases in class sizes” as the community’s top priorities for the LWSD budget.

Ashley replied, “I would just ask the district to put us on their priority list. … If the price of art supplies goes up, we still buy them. I want us to rank above oil pastels, paper towels and capital projects.”

She also cited the importance of technology, but said, “it’s skewed thinking to put human resources behind technology. … And I want to say that we care fiercely for this district. Most of us live here and have children in the district. We just want the same respect as everyone else.”

MICHAEL RUIZ

Michael Ruiz works at the LWSD Support Service Center, which houses maintenance, transportation, warehouse, capitalization and modernization departments. His title is Administrative Secretary III and he’s held the job for 20 months, earning $17.95 per hour.

Ruiz said he answers phones and e-mails, greets vendors and contractors, dispatches maintenance employees, assists supervisors and works with custodians on ordering air filters, light bulbs and equipment repairs.

“When I first started, I was doing a lot of work with the custodial department, but as of this past August, we out-sourced the department and laid the supervisor off,” he said. “Typical duties I did before August were payroll for sub custodians, schedule sub custodians, field calls from custodians, send out custodial supplies and assist the custodial supervisor.”

We asked Ruiz to explain the LWESP’s reference to a “death lane.”

There are three lanes for pay, A, B, and C, said Ruiz: “When you are hired on, you start in Lane A and will not move to B until ‘room’ is available and so on for Lane C. Room becomes available when someone dies, retires, gets a new job or leaves. Now each lane has a quota to maintain, which is 25 percent in A, 25 percent in B and 50 percent in C. Other school districts pay according to years of experience, higher than the Lake Washington School District, and do not have a quota system for pay.”

Ruiz said salary increases for school support personnel could be “covered by excess money that was rolled over from the previous fiscal year or the district could maintain less in its reserve fund.”

He cited a Budget Q & A quote (from the LWSD Web site), “The district maintains a general fund balance of about $11 million, which is about five percent of the district’s general operating budget.”

Ruiz concluded that he’s grateful to have a job but has to live at home with his father in Renton because he can’t afford to live in Redmond on his current salary.

JULIE WULF

Julie Wulf has been the office manager at Norman Rockwell Elementary for 17 years and earns $20.80 per hour. The school has 600 students and 60 staff members.

Wulf said her job includes “parent communication, health room and dispensing meds, assisting the principal, teacher and students, payroll, helping students and staff if principals are out of the office, purchasing supplies, recieving and maintaining a school budget, taking care of safety issues … i.e. fire drills, equipment, etc. Greeting and receptioning is a large part but very important ingredient to our school as we register families and multicultural families constantly.”

In reference to the “death lane,” Wulf said, “Those that are on the C lane have reached our top amount of pay; there are no more raises or monetary incentives.”

She said she works in two other jobs to support herself but added, “We are the hub of the schools and are a vital part of how everything operates within our buildings. (It is a) demanding job but does come with a most fulfilling reward.”

LWSD RESPONSE

LWSD communications director Kathryn Reith remarked that the current pay scales and “lane” systems for school support personnel are “not something just from the district but agreed to by both organizations in the last two bargainings … three years ago and three before then. They agreed to it twice, but they can always change their minds.”

Reith confirmed that 25 percent of school support employees fall into the A lane and those generally have between 0-2 years of experience on the job. The B lane includes another 25 percent of such employees, with about 2-7 years on the job. C lane accounts for 50 percent of the school support employees, most having 7-plus years in the job, she said.

“Every year we adjust that. About 20 people were moved up a lane in January,” said Reith.

The reason for this system, Reith stated, is that “the district needs constant cost to anticipate expenses. If you’re looking at a wage increase, it’s going to keep going, not just for that year. Once you spend surplus money, it’s gone. We do have some extra (funds) now to have some wiggle room but the board requires at least five percent surplus for cash flow, so we don’t end up short for standard operating purposes.”

To make changes to the school support personnel’s wages, Reith said, “we’d have to look at the whole budget and we’re limited by the amount we can get from the state.”

Revisiting the LWSD budget is something that’s on the horizon, said Reith: “What do we expect to increase or reduce?”

There is no immediate answer as to what the next budget’s priorities might include, she said.

“It’s not to say that secretaries don’t do a good job — but we have to look at other organizations and the overall budget and find the right spots to attract and retain employees.”