The Roaring Fork School District Board of Education passed a resolution in support of the salary adjustment plan at its most recent school board meeting on March 16. The salary adjustment plan aims to provide fair, competitive and living wages for all employees.

The salary adjustment plan is the result of the mill levy override (MLO) funds approved by district voters in November 2021. The majority of the funds are to be used to increase teacher and staff salaries.

The major points of the plan include:

• Restoring the “lost” cost-of-living step to any district employee hired before the 2020-21 school year and has not since changed positions.

• Increasing the district’s minimum wage to $18 per hour.

• Using a portion of the non-recurring MLO funds to increase the district’s starting teaching wage to $50,000 in the form of a professional wage supplement.

• Increasing salaries for teachers, counselors, special service providers, principals, assistant principals and other staff members who jobs are found almost exclusively in schools/school districts, to ensure they are in the top third (67th percentile or higher) of RFSD’s 10 comparison districts.

• Increasing the salaries for staff working in a local market to ensure they are in the 67th percentile or higher of comparable salaries for similar positions at local organizations or of comparison school districts.

“Thanks to the voters who approved the Mill Levy Override in November this infusion of funds will allow us to make the largest salary adjustment in the district’s history,” Superintendent Rob Stein said. “We have been working since November to ensure that we meet our goals of providing fair, competitive, and living wages to all staff.”

The salary adjustment plan is based on the district’s blueprint for providing fair, competitive, and living wages in the Roaring Fork Schools, which was developed through conversations with all employee groups and research about equitable compensation practices.

Later this spring, the district will recommend to the board that some of the remaining non-recurring 12% of MLO funds reserved for other retention and recruitment efforts be allocated toward staff housing and an employee education opportunity fund.