Who will get bigger raises this year: Palm Beach County school police or teachers? What to know

Palm Beach Post | By Katherine Kokal | November 12, 2024

The school district and the school police union reached a stalemate in negotiations this year. Last week, the school board made its final call on raises.

Palm Beach County’s School Board declared that it must treat its teachers, police and other staff unions equally as it denied several demands from the school police department’s union during a hearing Wednesday, Nov. 6. The board rejected raises for school police officers that would have been 2.5% higher than those approved for teachers.

Among the police union’s priorities were a 7.5% raise for officers and securing the right for employees to roll over to the next year 60 hours of compensatory time, or time off instead of overtime pay.

The school board, which was tasked with deciding on each area of disagreement between the district and the union, sided with Superintendent Mike Burke on all but two of the outstanding issues. Those two issues include higher hourly pay for “outside duty,” when officers work events at school campuses not hosted by the district, and a small increase to supplements for some employees.

Ultimately, the school board decided to give school police a 5% raise along with a bonus of $1,500 or 3% of the officer’s salary. The raises will be retroactive to Jan. 1 of this year.

Board members argued that granting 7.5% raises or allowing the rollover of compensatory time would anger other unions, such as the Classroom Teachers Association, which represents teachers, and SEIU, which represents paraprofessionals, translators, custodial staff and maintenance workers in the district.

“Based on the fact that the state of Florida seems to have every priority in the world other than funding education and giving us the money we need, we just can’t take a chance that if we put this kind of increase in place that we’re going to be able to pay it in the future,” board member Frank Barbieri said.

“Plus, once we do this, all the other unions are going to come forward and say, ‘Well, what about us?’ Last year we were generous with the police. This year was for the teachers,” he said.

This year, the board approved 4% raises for teachers rated “highly effective” and 4.1% raises for administrative staff like principals rated “highly effective.” Last year, teachers union members got 7% raises and school police officers got 7.5% raises, according to district records.

Officers will get bump in pay when they work events for outside groups at Palm Beach County schools, plus 5% raise

A school police officer watches students arrive for their first day of school at Dr. Joaquin Garcia High School in Palm Beach County, Florida on August 10, 2023.

Bargaining teams from the school district and the Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association, which represents the department’s roughly 250 officers, reached a stalemate this year in their negotiations.

After getting input from a special magistrate on their areas of disagreement in October, both teams made their cases to the school board in hopes of swaying their decision.

“It’s outrageous that some members of the School Board are playing politics with the safety of our kids and haggling over a 2.5% difference in proposed raises that are urgently needed in order to address the short staffing levels we are experiencing,” PBA President John Kazanjian said in a written statement ahead of the hearing.

A Palm Beach County Police vehicle is parked outside the Fulton-Holland Educational Services Center on August 17, 2022.

The board rejected the carryover of compensatory time, supplementary pay for officers who train others and increased supplements for officers working in the Glades who generally travel farther to work each day.

But the board agreed to raise hourly pay to $52.50 per hour from $50 when an officer works an “outside detail” at an event put on by an outside organization such as a church or community group that takes place at a school. The organization that leases the school for the event pays the officer’s salary.

“The stalemate that the board will ultimately have to decide on falls on ‘needs versus wants,’ ” V. Danielle Williams, a senior attorney for the school district, said Wednesday. “The district bargaining team has consistently negotiated based on the needs of the district and the union to ensure a competitive market position … while the PBA has been operating on wants.”

The board also agreed to 5% raises in supplementary pay for detectives, officers on the crisis response team and those on the field training team. Currently, those employees get a $4,000 supplement.

Palm Beach County school police were once lowest paid department across the county. But wages are going up

The 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County led to school safety reform across Florida. Now, all schools must have an armed guard on campus — a requirement Palm Beach County fills by employing its own school police force.

Katie Mendoza, an attorney for the school police union, and school police Sgt. David Furtado underscored the importance of paying school police officers in order to meet state requirements. Mendoza referred to school police as the only “high-risk group” on a school’s campus.

“When we hire new hires, we let them know, ‘Your job is to be that warrior,’ ” Furtado said. “I want, protecting my child, that warrior. I don’t want the least money can buy. I don’t want what average money can buy. I want the best. We should be the department that everybody is seeking to be at.”

Palm Beach County School police officer Mark Dakoski works on the first day of school at Grove Park Elementary School on August 12, 2024, in Palm Beach County, Florida.

As recently as 2022, figures from Florida’s Department of Law Enforcement showed that the school police department was ranked last across Palm Beach County’s 22 police departments in starting pay. It was $45,912.

But school police pay has improved dramatically since 2022: Officers got 5% raises in 2022 and 7% last year, and the starting salary has increased to attract new employees.

The minimum salary for a school police officer in 2023 averaged $64,160 per year, according to figures provided by FDLE, resulting in the school police department ranking 10th in the county last year.

Chief of School Police Sarah Mooney, who is on the bargaining team on behalf of the school district, said Wednesday that the 5% raise will be enough to attract new officers and keep existing employees.

“At this point, I think the 5% is adequate,” she said. A 7.5% increase “is not mandatory to keep our heads above water.”

Now the school district and PBA’s attorneys will draft an agreement using the school board’s decisions. While Wednesday’s hearing handled the union’s 2024 agreement, members from both sides will have to return to the table soon to discuss the 2025 contract.