Bernalillo schools approve union agreement with teacher raises, staff incentives

BERNALILLO — Bernalillo Public School teachers will get a raise in the upcoming school year, and certain staffers will receive incentives to fix building maintenance issues thanks to a collective bargaining agreement recently signed between the employee union and the school district.

The agreement, approved by the BPS Board of Education June 12, includes a 4% raise for educators, consistent with House Bill 156. The legislation gives level one teachers $55,000 a year, level two teachers $65,000 a year, and level three teachers $75,000 a year. The salaries add up to a $5,000 increase from last school year, which lawmakers said is the amount needed to keep up with inflation, according to multiple news reports.

The agreement also adds a provision that will give employees in charge of facilities a $150 stipend to volunteer for weekly on-call evening and weekend shifts.

Eric James, the school district’s deputy superintendent of business and operations, praised the school board for supporting the agreement, which came together in a few short weeks despite the health challenges of the union’s vice president, Michael Ray Chavez, who passed away May 19.

“We’re grateful for the excellent partnership we have with NEA-New Mexico and that we can work collaboratively to do what’s best for teachers and for students,” James said.

Jennifer Trujillo, president of the National Education Association-Bernalillo and assessment coordinator for BPS, said she is “very happy” the board approved the agreement.

Though the agreement is good for the next five years, certain provisions, including salaries, will be bargained annually, James noted. The district and the union negotiate salary following the end of the legislative session in March, he said.

Trujillo said the union appreciates the teachers’ raise, which she noted has been a consistent priority of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

But her concern with salary increases is that they don’t help teachers pay for rising health care costs or cost-of-living adjustments.

“When insurance goes up, gas goes up — certain things — the teachers, the custodians and the cooks don’t really feel the raise,” Trujillo said. “Sometimes, they’re making less than what they were making before — even with the raise.”

She said the new stipend for school district maintenance workers will incentivize them to tend to urgent needs surrounding district buildings. Administrators are already seeing more maintenance workers sign up for on-call shifts because of the stipend, Trujillo said.

James said the stipend funds stem are available due to the money saved from the school district hiring less outside contractors to conduct maintenance work.

He said giving school district facility employees an incentive to do the work “allows us to function at a higher level” and removes a burden from their superiors, particularly during emergency situations.

“Up until this time, our foreman and our director had to take on-call (shifts) as part of their regular duties and frankly; it wears them out,” James said. “It’s very important for us to be able to have people that are assigned that duty, that are compensated for that duty, that are familiar with the district and can go out and take care of anything that arises.”