School official wary of retention plan

Two new laws giving Kansas school districts freedom to expand teacher benefits likely won’t have immediate consequence in Lawrence, a local teachers’ union leader said Thursday.

Al Gyles, chief negotiator with Lawrence Education Assn., said he would be wary of any effort to move quickly into district-financed teacher bonuses and retirement plan payments.

“Something like that takes a lot of time to design,” he said.

The 2002 Legislature made it legal for public school districts to make teaching jobs more attractive by offering bonuses. Under the law, “teacher” is broadly defined to include teachers, supervisors, principals, superintendents or any other certified employee.

In addition, lawmakers approved a measure that permits school boards to make matching contributions to an employee’s annuity or retirement fund.

“This is something that districts are jumping on … fairly quickly,” said Kathy Johnson, the district’s budget director.

Gyles said representatives of the 900 members of LEA would have to study both laws before endorsing new benefits tied to retirement or bonuses.

Shifting district salary money to a new retirement benefit wouldn’t do much for teachers nearing the end of their careers, he said.

“We have an awful lot of teachers within five years of early retirement,” Gyles said.

On the other hand, he said, it could be terrific for new teachers.

Gyles said bonuses would be more problematic.

“Obviously, we’ll check out any possibility,” he said. “But I think, from an LEA standpoint, the main question would be: Who gets to decide who gets the bonus and under what conditions?”

He said “hard and fast” rules for allocating bonuses would have to be worked out.