Livingston Parish Superintendent Introduces Salary Restructure Proposal
Livingston, LA – Livingston Parish School Superintendent Joe Murphy on Thursday (April 11) will introduce a proposal to school board members to adjust the district’s salary schedule to reflect recommendations made by a third-party consulting service.
LEAN Frog, a nationally recognized expert in providing operational and programmatic assessments of education organizations, recently conducted a Comprehensive Organizational Review and Compensation Review that provided recommendations on how the district could improve to be more in alignment with like-sized and top-performing school districts in the state.
One of the consulting firm’s recommendations was for the district to adjust its pay schedule to represent more steps in pay increases and to better account for higher degree ranks among its employees. Livingston Schools currently has 26 steps for its teacher with only 18 pay increases built into those steps, whereas most peer pay schedules include 30 steps and provide for pay increases at all steps.
Murphy said his proposal would align and equalize the district’s salary schedule in a 30-step structure, normalize annual increases each year, standardize values for advanced degree attainment and correct indexing to accurately reflect salaries to establish a competitive range of salaries from starting pay to ending pay. The proposal also addresses those salaries that are more than 10% below their peers across all steps and degrees.
“We must have a starting point and we must fix the structure, before moving forward,” Murphy said. “This proposal addresses that issue. It provides an incentive for our people to remain with us and to continue their education.”
Murphy noted the total cost of the salary proposal is an additional $4,503,617.21 to the district’s annual budget.
“It touches the largest number of employees possible, given our budget constraints and no one is penalized by it. This should only be considered as the first step in this effort, but it is vital that the first step be the right step, and along with LEAN Frog, we believe this is the correct first step,” he said.
Murphy said the proposal was approved by the district’s Committee of a Whole on Monday (April 8) for recommendation to the board for a vote. He said if the proposal is approved by the school board on Thursday (April 11), it would be implemented for the 2024-2025 fiscal year.