New bill would allow Pa. school board members to get paid

HARRISBURG (CBS) — What does Pennsylvania have in widespread with Texas and no different state? 

Following Colorado’s current resolution to permit college board members to earn salaries of as much as $150 per day, solely Texas and Pennsylvania prohibit college board members from incomes salaries, primarily based on this evaluation earlier than the change in Colorado. 

On the opposite finish of the spectrum are a number of states like Florida, the place all college board members earn salaries of as a lot as about $46,000 within the largest districts. 

Most different states permit, however don’t require, districts to pay their members. That might change if a proposal by Rep. Joe Webster (D-Montgomery County) turns into regulation. 

Webster additionally desires to permit board members to take sure free faculty programs to coach themselves about board service-related points and to require extra coaching for brand new board members. 

Beth Sviben, a board member on the Central Dauphin College District – central Pennsylvania’s largest – mentioned modest board pay may overcome an impediment different individuals have cited as a motive to keep away from working. 

“They mentioned, ‘Hey, I can not step up and run, as a result of I can not pay a babysitter,’” Sviben mentioned. 

Webster mentioned these are precisely the varieties of people that ought to be represented on college boards, as a result of they may “carry a distinct perspective to a faculty board.” 

He mentioned even in his comparatively prosperous legislative district, about 20 % of scholars qualify without cost or reduced-price lunches, however these college students’ mother and father do not are likely to serve on college boards. 

“That did turn into obvious in March and April of 2020, when the pandemic was impacting our colleges initially, after which realizing some households have been depending on that college meal, whereas different households have been OK,” Webster mentioned. 

Webster’s concepts are within the early levels of the legislative course of. Most payments launched in Pennsylvania do not turn into regulation, and proper now no payments have gotten regulation due to a stand-off between Democrats and Republicans protecting the Home of Representatives from functioning. 

No formal opposition has emerged thus far. Nationally, opponents of plans to provoke or improve college board pay usually cite the associated fee: To pay themselves, board members may want to lift taxes or divert funds from lecture rooms. 

“When it prices taxpayer cash, it at all times turns into critical,” Webster mentioned. “It’s a must to weigh all of the pluses and minuses.” 

One compromise that helped the Colorado invoice turn into regulation: Current college boards may vote solely to permit future board members to obtain salaries, in order that board members weren’t voting to pay themselves. The state additionally restricted board member pay to $150 per day. 

The board of the state’s largest district, Denver Public Colleges, finally voted to pay future board members as much as $9,000 per yr. 

Webster himself mentioned his proposals are imperfect. 

“If we have been drawing this up on a clear sheet of paper, we would not do it this manner,” he mentioned. 

However he mentioned inside Pennsylvania’s structural constraints, they’re higher than nothing. 

Sviben mentioned primarily based on her expertise – particularly at conferences throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, when tensions have been excessive over points like masking – some Pennsylvanians can be much less stunned by Webster’s proposal than by the truth that board members do not already earn salaries. 

“Individuals would come to the conferences to talk, after they have been upset about issues, [saying] ‘We’re not going to pay you,’” she mentioned. “‘And my response was, ‘Effectively, you do not.’” 

One main distinction between Pennsylvania, on one finish of the compensation spectrum, and Florida, on the opposite: Each states have precisely 67 counties. However Florida has simply 67 college districts – one per county. Pennsylvania has about 500 districts, which the Pennsylvania College Boards Affiliation represents. 

What does the PSBA consider Webster’s concept? 

“Our member-driven legislative platform doesn’t converse to this difficulty, so we often do not take a place on points corresponding to this,” mentioned Andrew Christ, the group’s managing director of presidency affairs.