{"id":13609,"date":"2024-09-24T20:54:25","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T20:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=13609"},"modified":"2024-09-24T21:04:02","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T21:04:02","slug":"new-pay-rates-and-new-pay-errors-for-workers-in-durham-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2024\/09\/24\/new-pay-rates-and-new-pay-errors-for-workers-in-durham-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"New pay rates \u2014 and new pay errors \u2014 for workers in Durham schools"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Durham school board unanimously approved employee pay rates for the current school year Thursday, but not before hearing staff complaints on a familiar theme \u2014\u00a0 pay errors.<\/span><\/p>\n Pay schedules posted on DPS\u2019 website last week include<\/span>d<\/span> several <\/span>m<\/span>istakes, such as incomplete pay rates for speech and language pathologists, school psychologists, and audiologists.<\/span><\/p>\n The pay mistakes felt like deja vu to some employees. Payroll errors were at the heart of a DPS crisis last year, in which the district approved raises for classified staff that it could not afford. The mistakes <\/span>affected<\/span><\/a> roughly 1,300 workers and led to mass sick-outs by employees in protest.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis was sickeningly reminiscent of that Tuesday in January when we learned just how little our county thought of our classified coworkers….,\u201d DPS speech therapist Bethany Pergerson said at Thursday’s meeting. \u201cNow we have these \u2018corrected\u2019 salary schedules, but there are significant concerns.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n District hires a third payroll consultant<\/strong><\/p>\n The compensation schedules were designed by Eyrie Success, the <\/span>third<\/span><\/a> outside contractor hired by the district to assist with salary schedules. <\/span>Eyrie Success was hired by the school system on September 4 for 30 days, nearly a month after the board originally <\/span>planned<\/span><\/a> to approve compensation schedules.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At Thursday night\u2019s meeting, Eyrie Success\u2019 founder and CEO, Raushawna Price, responded to comments about the pay scale errors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI do want to\u2026acknowledge that in our 15 days of working through this work, that there were some errors that we did need to correct, and that is a part of the transparency, and seeing many eyes on the work allows for that to happen, it wasn\u2019t behind a curtain, it was\u2026forward. And, there is vulnerability in that and I think that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n