Manteca Unified teachers will be compensated 7.31 percent more annually by the 2018-2019 school year.
Tonight the Manteca Unified Board of Education will formally vote on a raise for teachers that will keep them under contract through the end of 2019 – the final step in a negotiation process that drew fierce criticisms from rank-and-file teachers during the tumultuous process.
The board is expected to approve the proposal, which has already been approved by the majority of the 1,200 Manteca Unified teachers.
The final compensation package agreed upon by district negotiators and the Manteca Educators Association is almost identical to the offer presented by the Manteca Unified School Board itself during a meeting back in June. It was a proposal that at the time raised the ire of the teachers’ negotiating team that accused the board of bargaining outside of negotiations, publicly, while a mediator for the State of California was assigned to handle the matter privately.
According to the public disclosure of collective bargaining, the district would have paid its teachers $94,127,767 as a combined expenditure for the 2017/18 school year without the agreement in place. If approved, an additional $3,523,137 will be paid retroactively as part of the agreement, and the second step of the raise, which will come for the next calendar school year, will cost the district an additional $$4,706,388 attributed to a 5 percent raise. The following school year – the 2018/19 cycle – the district will pay an additional $6,177,775 from a 5 percent raise and a 1.56 percent step and column increase.
Had the agreement not been reached, the district would have paid out $121,977,493 in total compensation – salary plus other compensation, statutory benefits and health and welfare plans – this upcoming school year.  With the agreement in place, that number will increase by $4,116,909 retroactively for the 2016/17 school year – a 3.38 percent total increase – and will go up an additional $7,604,726 for the 2017/18 school year for a total compensation increase of 6.03 percent. The final year of the contract, the 2018/19 school year, will cost the district an additional $9,471,602 over the base for a 7.31 percent increase in total compensation.
Based on the new salary schedule, a new, first-step teacher will make $53,387 this school year while the ceiling for teachers will increase from $99,206 to $102,202 – reserved for only a very small amount of the district’s 1,200 teachers who have a Master’s Degree and at least 28 years of teaching experience.
The approval of the board is the final step in the process but is autonomous from the acceptance and tentative agreement reached between district administration and negotiators for the teachers.

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.