Growls

At the Arlington County Board’s first budget work session on February 8, one Board member asked for information “regarding the relative difference between the County and Schools’s percent increase for steps.” The answer is provided in a “follow-up” paper (entitled "County and Schools Step Increases," at Human Resources Department), dated March 14, 2011. Following is staff’s introductory to their response to the Board member’s question, which you can find at the "County Board work session follow-up webpage:

“Several factors impact an employee’s lifetime earnings, including size of the pay range, value of step increases, and the number of years to reach the maximum of a salary range.  Based on the Human Resources Department’s analysis, local government and school systems develop and operate their compensation systems independently.  While there is some common ground, ultimately the school systems design their programs to attract and retain employees in a different market than local government, particularly for the teaching profession.”

The response distinguished between employees of Arlington County and Arlington Public Schools versus other jurisdictions. To help distinguish between Arlington’s County employment steps and those of Arlington Public Schools, staff provided a helpful table showing 1) pay range from minimum to maximum; 2) years to reach maximum; 3) step values; 4) total earnings over 18 years; and 5) difference in earnings over 18 years. The two primary points in the staff response were:

“Arlington Public Schools (APS) has multiple pay scales covering various groups of employees, whereas Arlington County has only one pay scale. This analysis uses the APS teacher’s pay scale and the pay scale covering Schools trades/custodial workers.

“Step increases are typically given annually, either on an employee’s anniversary date (for County employees) or a common date for school employees (e.g., beginning of a school year). The resulting differences in earnings are shown in the table on the next page.

• The scales for County and APS general employees are similar in pay range and actual step value. The difference between these two scales is that the value of steps for County employees declines over time, while the APS general employee scale remains steady for the first 10 years and then declines.
• The differences between the County  employee and APS teacher scale are significant. The APS teacher pay range is 25% larger, there are more steps, steps are of higher value, and the value of steps remains steady over 11 years of a teacher’s career.

In addition, the staff response includes step information about both governement and school employees in Alexandria and Fairfax, and a chart showing “the cumulative effect of step increases on a $40,000/year county employee and teacher in Alexandria, Arlington County, and Fairfax County.