San Marcos teachers seek raises amid COVID, inflation while school district faces budget cuts

San Marcos teachers feel offended, said high school educator Dale Pluciennik, president of the San Marcos teachers union.

They have gone through two years of COVID and kept schools open last month, through severe staffing shortages due to the Omicron surge.

Recently they learned their district is not offering a raise for the current school year, he said. Dozens of them carried signs to a San Marcos board meeting Tuesday.

“Morale was low as it is. This just kind of sunk morale even lower,” Pluciennik said.

The union, which has 1,100 members, is currently negotiating a new contract with the school district after the previous one expired last school year.

The district last gave educators a 2 percent raise to its salary schedule for the second half of last school year.

It is offering a 1.25 percent salary schedule raise for the next school year, effective July 1, in addition to a one-time, 1 percent bonus.

It’s also offering increases to department chair and grade-level leader stipends, new coaching stipends and an increase to the teacher hourly rate.

But teachers were expecting an increase for the current school year.

District official cite budget constraints.

The district is expecting to have to make $10 million to $15 million in budget cuts out of a $263 million budget for next school year, largely due to declining enrollment.

Enrollment and attendance affect how much state funding school districts receive. San Marcos lost 1,200 of its 19,000 or so students in the past two years of the pandemic.

“The San Marcos Unified School District has always valued our teaching and instruction staff, as we do all employees, and seeks to provide a competitive salary and benefits package,” district spokesperson Amy Ventetuolo said in an email.

Pluciennik said he wants teachers to get more partly because districts are getting more money. The state increased its base school funding formula by 5 percent this year, and the governor has proposed another 5 percent increase for districts next school year.

Teachers, like everyone else, are facing higher costs of living with severe inflation, he said.