About 14,000 Philadelphia teachers, school nurses, counselors, paraprofessionals, and other school workers were supposed to get a 3% raise in September.
The money never showed.
“While it was our hope to have your salary increases ready in time,” Oz Hill, the district’s deputy superintendent for operations, told employees in an email, “we are unable to meet this aggressive timeframe utilizing the new payroll system that was launched this year. Please accept our apology for this, and know that your payments will be made on October 24.”
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Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president Arthur Steinberg shared his frustration on social media. He blamed the district’s “internal failures” and emphasized that the raises and their timing were negotiated — and agreed to by both sides.
“We have made our displeasure with the district’s incompetence clear, and are exploring options for further actions,” Steinberg wrote.
He declined to comment further.
PFT members will eventually get their pay, backdated to Sept. 1, and Steinberg said the union got the district to agree to move up a promised $1,400 bonus to be paid in the Oct. 10 paycheck, rather than Nov. 7, as initially promised.
But many PFT members are livid.
It wasn’t the first mistake. In early September, many new PFT members didn’t get paychecks when they were supposed to. Employees have also gotten checks for the wrong amount and have not gotten paid on time for working extended school year programs. Some teachers who retired or resigned didn’t get their last payouts on time.
“As a teacher with over a decade of devoted service, I find these recurring payroll errors extremely demotivating, and I’m sure other people feel the same way,” one teacher said. The teacher asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal. “And having demotivated teachers can lead to worse student outcomes.”
‘This is how they treat us?’
On social media, some staff said they were counting on the money to pay bills or make purchases, and expressed frustration that they won’t receive any interest on the late pay.
Others said it felt like a double standard for school-based staff and central office administrators.
“The district expects us to be 150% — they expect us to have lesson plans, they expect us to follow the curriculum, they expect us to be professional with our students, but this is how they treat us?” said another teacher who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal. “The lack of competence boggles my mind.”
Joel Legatt, who works at Northeast High, is a National Board Certified teacher — a coveted designation that requires continuing education, and comes with an annual bonus. For the past few years, the bonus has arrived late.
“And now they’re not only late, but significantly late, with the staff’s raises,” Legatt said. “Mistakes can happen and are made by children, adults, and organizations. That’s understandable; everybody makes mistakes. But the expectation is that people and organizations learn from their mistakes and don’t repeat them. I’m not seeing that here at all, which is concerning.”
There were also issues this year around contractually promised bonuses for employees who work at hard-to-staff schools; the PFT has said it also got those worked out.