Portland Public Schools plans to furlough teachers, principals, other staffers 1 day a week — but they’d make more money not less – By Betsy Hammond (The Oregonian/OregonLive) / May 2 2020
Portland Public Schools plans to furlough all employees one day a week for the rest of the school year, using a little-known provision of the special $600-a-week federal unemployment subsidy that Congress authorized through July, officials said Friday.
Unemployed workers in Oregon and many other states qualify for the full $600 a week if they lose as little as 10% of their pay due to coronavirus, not only if they completely lose their jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
So Oregon’s largest district has hatched a plan to have its employees work four days a week for the remainder of this school year, and it is banking on its unionized employees agreeing to the deal. Employees would lose 20% of their pay from the district but would have that more than backfilled by receiving 20% of the weekly state unemployment benefit to which they are entitled under the state Work Share program plus the full $600 weekly federal match.
That means a teacher earning $88,000 – the top rung on the pay scale, where teachers who have master’s degrees and at least 12 years of experience are positioned – would lose about $460 a week in district pay. But that teacher would qualify for $600 a week from the federal rescue package plus about $130 from the state unemployment system. So weekly gross pay could rise from about $2,290 to about $2,565 – a raise of nearly 12% for doing less work.
Or at least that is the district’s concept, and state and federal rules appear to permit that.
For workers who earn less than $88,000, the percentage raise would be even larger, as $600 would further dwarf the weekly cut in their pay from Portland Public Schools. Any worker earning less than about $265,000 a year would come out financially ahead.
The district plans to maintain employees’ benefits at current levels.
Continue to article: https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2020/05/portland-public-schools-plans-to-furlough-teachers-principals-other-staffers-1-day-a-week-but-theyd-make-more-money-not-less.html
