📜 Dearest Readers,
As promised, Lady Budgetdown has turned the page to Pontiac Public Schools.
This week, I spent time reading the public contracts for both the Pontiac Education Association (teachers) and the Pontiac Association of School Administrators. Rather than focusing on a single salary number, I wanted to understand the agreements as a whole.
What I found was a reminder that compensation is about much more than base pay.
For teachers, the contract includes salary schedules based on education and experience, annual step movement for eligible employees, leave benefits, class-size overage compensation, and several targeted recruitment and retention incentives—including signing bonuses, relocation assistance, and certain training stipends. The district has also begun transitioning from a 31-step salary schedule toward a shorter progression designed to move teachers to the top of the pay scale more quickly.
For administrators, compensation extends beyond salary as well. Their agreement includes position-based salary schedules, leave and sick-bank provisions, health insurance, life and long-term disability coverage, a monthly tax-sheltered annuity contribution for those who waive district health insurance, and terminal pay provisions for certain long-serving administrators who meet the contract's eligibility requirements.
One thing that stood out to me is that teachers and administrators are not working under the same type of agreement. They have different responsibilities, different work calendars, different salary structures, and different benefit packages. Comparing only one line of a contract, or only one salary rarely tells the whole story.
That's exactly why Lady Budgetdown reads the contracts instead of relying on summaries or headlines.
As always, these posts are not endorsements or criticisms of any contract or bargaining unit. They are simply an effort to organize publicly available information into a format that is easier to understand so readers can ask informed questions of their own.
The contracts are public.
The receipts are public.
And everyone is welcome to read them for themselves.
With receipts and respect.