Education Week - October 30, 2019 - 12

Minimum Wage Hikes
Place Local Districts
In Financial Squeeze

Bracing for Impact
No state so far has explicitly set
aside extra money to compensate
school districts for new, costly minimum wage requirements, a far less
politically savvy move than, for example, raising teacher salaries.
But administrators who have been
through the process say that in order
to meet the new requirements they've
had to upend their entire employees
pay structure.
Other superintendents say they are
having to renegotiate major contracts
with substitute teachers and transportation and food service vendors.
District budget managers with already tight budgets say they have few
good choices: They can go to voters
and ask to raise taxes to afford the
new wages; lay off classified employees or freeze hiring; or give low-wage
workers the required increases and
forgo other priorities such as raising
teacher salaries, repairing crumbling
facilities, and instituting other academic initiatives.
"We've already made all the cuts we
could make to keep us out of the red
and get us through lean times," Sutton
said. "I don't think we will consider
laying people off or not replacing staff,
but this might limit our ability to hire
on new positions."
Labor activists have long complained that those at the bottom of the
pay scale have had to take on second
and third jobs in order to afford to pay
for groceries, utility bills and rent.
As the economy surged and cities
gentrified, minimum wages stagnated-the federal minimum of $7.25
per hour, for example, hasn't been
increased since 2009. Since 2012, service and fast food workers in the private industry began to stage massive
walkouts, traffic-halting rallies, and
weeks-long strikes in Chicago, New
York City, and Los Angeles.
"The 'Fight for $15' movement totally reset people's expectations for
what the minimum wage should be,"
said David Cooper, a senior analyst
for the Economic Policy Institute, a
think tank that advocates for higher
wages.
EPI estimated recently that only 6
percent of public school employees

Political Reaction
The "Fight for $15" minimum wage
movement is having an impact on
districts' budgets akin to that of the
teachers' "Red for Ed" movement
that forced substantial pay increases
in Arizona, Oklahoma, and West
Virginia.
In some instances, school boards
have joined the movement, leaping
ahead of lawmakers and pledging
to pay their low-wage workers living
wages.
Denver's school board earlier this
year passed a resolution that said that
by 2023 it will pay all its 3,000 hourly
employees at least $15 an hour, which
is almost $4 more than the current
minimum wage in Colorado. Administrators expect the wage increase to
ultimately cost the district $9 million
over the next four years.
In its resolution, the Denver board
pointed out the cyclical nature of paying wages that leave local families impoverished and then having to pay for
counselors and wraparound services
to ameliorate the effects of poverty in
the classroom.
"Our students and families living
in poverty face unique challenges of
housing instability, challenged access
to mental and physical health care,
and an opportunity gap that exists
before even starting kindergarten,"
the resolution said. "These families

12 | EDUCATION WEEK | October 30, 2019 | www.edweek.org

Photocredit

schools-a 700 percent increase in
the last half century, according to the
Thomas B. Fordham Institute-has
largely been in response to higher
expectations of schools, the rise in
staff needed to work with Englishlanguage learners, and students
with special needs and teacher shortages.
Today, those nearly 3 million support staff members' salaries and benefits make up more than a quarter of
overall K-12 spending.

will be affected by new, higher minimum wage requirements, though district superintendents dispute those
figures. Cooper said raising wages can
lead to more satisfied employees, less
turnover and increased state sales and
income tax revenue.

MIREYA HERNANDEZ, left,
and KAREN CROWFORD,
both food service techs at
Sonoma Valley High
School in Sonoma, Calif.,
Photographs by Salgu Wissmath for Education Week

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

will benefit from the
district's decision to raise
its minimum wage to $15
per hour ahead of the
state's 2022 mandate for
that increase. School
districts nationwide, which
have large numbers of
low-wage workers, are
feeling the fiscal pressure
as states and
municipalities seek to
boost minimum wages to
what's considered a living
wage.

Added Boost: The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour hasn't
increased since 2009, but 29 states and the District of Columbia set their
minimums beyond that. The higher minimums range from $8.55 in Ohio to
more than $15 in California, and are set to go into effect as early as this year
and as late as 2025. In addition, more than 44 municipalities have raised their
minimum wages above their state's minimum.
SOURCE: Economic Policy Institute

States that have
a minimum
wage higher
than the federal
minimum wage

DC
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