Dear Helena Public Schools Staff,

On September 25, the Independent Record printed a front-page article regarding the Helena Public Schools Board of Trustees’ decision to award administrative pay increases for the 2024-25 school year. Although the article generally contained accurate reporting, a great deal of critical information was left out, leaving staff and community members with a false impression of what had actually occurred. This led to a number of staff members contacting the board with questions and concerns.

Thus, I am reaching out to all of you with the goal of attaining a reasonable level of understanding and providing background information to support the board’s rationale that led to a districtwide, 1.5% increase in pay for the 2024-25 school year.

Background Information – Administrative Pay:

• Throughout the past two decades, administrative pay was addressed inconsistently. Salaries were frozen multiple times, and it was not uncommon for administrators to have zero dollars added to their paychecks from one year to the next. For example, one of our administrators has experienced wage freezes for eight of the twelve years that he has worked for Helena Public Schools.
• About 4 years ago, the Board of Trustees was made aware that many non-certified staff and administrators had fallen significantly behind the compensation levels of our AA peers, and low wages were having a significant impact on the district’s ability to recruit and retain employees.
• The board committed itself to adopting a fair and market-aligned compensation approach for ALL employee groups with the intention of maintaining the ability to attract quality applicants and motivate top talent to continue working in our district.
• A secondary goal was to create an effective process of budgeting that allowed for regular pay increases for all employee groups so that unwieldy “catch-up” pay adjustments, which have proven to be both fiscally unhealthy and generally unpopular, would be avoided.
• Prompt steps were taken to begin addressing obvious pay inequities and a lag in compensation for groups who were behind market. For example, paraeducators’ and custodians’ compensation has been consistently addressed and has been increased 29% and 13% respectively, over the last several years. (Although the board is aware that more work is likely warranted).
• In the 2020-21 school year, under the leadership of Superintendent Ream, the board directed the district to conduct a market analysis of administrator salaries. At that time, administrators had gone without pay increases for multiple years at a time, potential candidates for open administrative positions were pulling out of applicant pools because of low wages, and most administrative positions were clearly among the lowest paid compared to our AA counterparts.
• Unfortunately, daily wage rates were used in the market analysis instead of administrators’ annual salary. This pushed many administrative annual salaries above market indicators because, at that time, our administrators worked significantly more days/year than our AA counterparts.
• Typically, employee groups that negotiate into the following fiscal year receive payment dating back to July. (For example, the paraprofessionals who are currently negotiating their salaries will be paid back to July 2024.) In 2020-21, this customary practice was also applied to the administrative group.
• When administrative salary errors were identified, Superintendent Weltz and the Board leadership immediately worked with legal counsel to reduce administrative salaries as much as was legally possible, and administrative salaries were declared frozen until sometime in the future, when it was clear that they had intersected market norms.
• Safeguards were also put in place to ensure that similar compensation errors were not made in the future. For example, a new requirement to provide transparency was enacted. It requires administrative salary changes to be voted upon by the board, a practice that had not been consistently practiced in the past.

Current Compensation Information:

• Please note that Superintendent Weltz is not part of the administrative employee group. He negotiates his salary directly with the board. Recently, Mr. Weltz’s salary was increased from near the bottom of AA comparables to slightly below market.
• For clarification purposes, it is important to note that district administrators currently do not receive annual step increases for years of service, nor, unlike certified teachers, do they have a pay matrix that offers an increased salary for additional college credits, advanced degrees, or certifications (which requires both time and money for teachers, and can increase pay anywhere between 4% and 16%). Thus, the pay increase for every district administrator, regardless of date of hire over the last three years, has been zero.
• With direction from the board to move ahead with as much equity and predictability as possible, the district hired CMS consultants, a local, third-party human resource firm, to provide employee compensation data and salary recommendations.
• Among many other tasks, CMS’ work included working with a focus group that included teachers, administrators, various staff members, and union leaders. According to their report, the focus group concurred that all employee groups should get regular, standardized increases.
• Several central administrative positions have been eliminated or combined. HPS went from 13 central office administrators in 2019-20 to 10 administrators in 2024-25, this 13% decrease makes the HPS central office staff one of the smaller leadership groups in Montana’s AA districts. To put it in perspective, another AA school district laid off more central office staff than we currently employ in HPS when their COVID funds expired, and they still employ 2 more central office staff than we do.

• The administrative group was one of the last groups to receive a 1.5% increase for the 2024-25 school year. This is because the board needed time to ensure that no administrative salaries were outside of market (which was confirmed by CMS consultants) before moving ahead with the 1.5% salary increase offered to all employee groups.
• Trustees did not “find extra money” from an already extremely tight financial situation to pay administrators. A 1.5% districtwide pay increase for ALL employee groups was built into the 2024-25 board adopted budget.

Relevant Facts:

• Several new administrators have not received an increase in their paychecks since they were hired. Like all employee groups, they have seen reductions in their take-home pay as a result of rising health care costs.
• Contrary to misinformation that has been circulating, district administrators have not received a “special bonus” unique to only administrators at any time in recent history.
• There is also a fallacious notion that the board purposely discussed and voted upon the 1.5% administrative pay increase at a board work session to avoid transparency. Work sessions are held at individual schools and are designed to have short agendas, so trustees have ample time to work through more complex issues such as personnel compensation. Site visits used to be scheduled after school hours, but after hearing from staff that they wanted the board and administration to visit when schools are in session, the meeting times were changed.
• Please note that employee compensation, including administrative pay, has been discussed at multiple meetings. In fact, to provide both information and transparency, CMS has made two presentations to the full board. Again, this is in addition to the focus group attended by staff and union leaders.
• See chart below for detailed employee group salary information.

I am thankful for this opportunity to make clarifications, share information, and voice my perspectives. If you are still reading this letter, thank you for hearing me out. Whether you agree or disagree with what I have written, at a minimum, I hope this communication clarifies the board’s rationale as to why administrators were included in this year’s 1.5% districtwide pay increase. I would also like to reiterate the trustees’ position that all employee groups are valued, and we are committed to fair and market-aligned salary schedules. It is the board’s desire, with adequate funding, to get wages above market for every member of our staff.

From a broader perspective, I will continue to work alongside our district leadership and Montana’s statewide education organizations in preparation for the 2025 Legislative Session when we will seek the additional funding that we need to properly operate our schools. I hope you will join me in these efforts, so we can build a better future for Helena Public School staff, students, families, and the Helena community.

Thank you for the hard work and commitment you bring to our district each and every day. Please do not hesitate to reach out with further questions or concerns. Vice Chair McKee and I are also available to meet with staff at your school. Please let us know if this is of interest to you. Despite these hard times, as we struggle to provide the same level of service with limited funds, it is important to remember that we are still an incredible school system that accomplishes much and works miracles every single day.

Best Regards,

Siobhan K. Hathhorn, Chair
Helena Public Schools, Board of Trustees