Springfield educators push for better pay and sick leave as school committee reviews budget

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) -The Springfield Public Schools Committee held a hearing on the upcoming year's operating budget Wednesday.

The meeting comes as enrollment is down across the entire school district.

Educators and teachers are looking to see higher compensation and additional sick time reflected in this budget. Springfield Public Schools proposed a budget of around $670 million, a 7% increase from last year's. Educators and teachers gathered at Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy to voice their concerns for this upcoming budget.

Salaries are expected to increase by $14.3 million or 5.4%. That includes cost-of-living adjustments and collective bargaining agreements. Springfield Public Schools Autism Specialist Christie Turcott told 22News, "We need more than a small pay increase that barely covers the cost of living. We are simply going to continue to grow the incredible teacher shortage we already have in this district. We have so many teachers, a record run in classrooms, and most of them are pouring their guts into their students. I know that we are thankful for them and for stepping up, but they need our help."

Others hope to see their sick days go from 10 to 15 days, similar to what it was in 2013. One teacher, Shauneen Coutu, says she has exhausted all of her accrued sick time in 2022 after battling cancer. "Without being able to accrue time. I've worked without pay when I've had to call out sick," she says. "The term sick days has not been sufficient and has been detrimental to me. Financial situation, physical health, and mental health."

The Chief Financial and Operations Officer, Patrick Roach, offered a suggestion, saying "Our proposal is to put money into the sick, put days into the sick bank that would be available to go to those teachers, you know, that don't have a lot of, you know, years and haven't been able to build up their sick bank or some of those members with medical needs," said Roach. "You know, those are the ones that we really see that don't have a lot of sick time in their bank and that this would be really important for us to resolve them. We haven't received a counteroffer on that yet."

Educators hope that there will be some tweaks to the budget to keep the Springfield Public School district competitive with other school districts and to retain, recruit, and entice new licensed educators.

The school committee will be meeting again next week to review the final budget. A vote will be made on the budget on May 8th.