Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 24, 1993                   TAG: 9304240255
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TEACHERS' PAY BEHIND INFLATION

And the teachers are using that fact to help bolster their campaign to persuade City Council to provide money for schools.

In 1967, the salary for a first-year teacher in the city was $5,500.

Today, the starting pay is $22,820 - more than four times higher than it was 25 years ago.

But it is actually less than the 1967 salary when adjusted for inflation.

The Consumer Price Index for all items has risen from 33.0 to 143.6 in the past quarter-century. That's an increase of 335 percent.

To keep pace with inflation, the salary for beginning teachers should have increased to $23,933, according to Todd Wilson, an economist with the U.S. Department of Labor.

The city's starting salary is $1,113 less than the base pay for teachers who began in 1967, adjusted for inflation.

Wilson's figures verify the Roanoke Education Association's contention that the base salaries for teachers have not kept pace with inflation.

The teachers' organization used a slightly different method to compare the salaries, but it, too, found that the beginning pay now is below 1967 when adjusted for inflation.

Mason Powell, executive vice president of the REA, said Thursday that the organization used the research services of the Virginia Education Association to help with its calculations.

The comparison shows the effect of inflation and the city's unwillingness to keep up with inflation, Powell said.

An association leaflet notes that the beginning salary is $288 less than 1967 when adjusted for inflation and adds:

"Yet, compare the awesome responsibilities and demands facing today's beginning teacher as compared to those facing one starting in 1967!"

The REA has not released any information on a comparison of teacher salaries at the top of the scale with those 25 years ago. Many teachers are at the top of the scale because they have worked for the city for years.

A breakdown of those at the bottom and top of the scale was not immediately available.

The teachers have started a $3,800 newspaper and radio advertisement campaign to seek public support for more money for schools.

In Roanoke County, the increase in the starting salaries for teachers has barely kept ahead of inflation.

Like Roanoke, the county's starting pay was $5,500 in 1967.

Now, the county's salary for beginning teachers is $24,000, slightly higher ahead of inflation and $1,180 higher than the city's.

Salem did not have its own school system until 1983, so there are no comparative statistics.

Richard Kelley, executive for business affairs for Roanoke schools, questioned the relevancy of the REA study because he said teachers who began 25 years ago are making much more now than those just starting.

"We are not talking about the same people. It's two different groups of teachers," Kelley said. Those who started then are much higher on the pay scale, he said.

But the REA contends that the starting salary is the base that is used in determining salaries for the pay scale and other teachers.

Kelley said school administrators made a study a year or two ago and found that teacher raises had risen higher than inflation in the past 12 years. But that study did not cover 25 years.