For much of the past decade, many Swampscott teachers were paid
an incorrect amount, because a clause in their contract
concerning longevity was misunderstood.

While the problem has been corrected, some teachers over that
time period were overpaid, while others were underpaid,
according to School Department Business Manager Ed Cronin at
the School Committee’s meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 18.

“The results basically show that going back to 2003, teachers
were incorrectly paid longevity,” Cronin said.  “What we’d
like to do is rectify that problem.”

Cronin said he had been meeting with leaders of the teachers’
union starting last fall to determine “exactly what [the
longevity clause] was meant to say and what the impact was and
broke down the results.”

The overall results showed a total of about $40,000 went to the
overpaid teachers, while the teachers who were underpaid were
owed about $30,000.

“We’ve put in place something that will fix the problem going
forward,” said Cronin. “So it will no longer exist. But we
still have past inequities to deal with.”

The School Committee agreed to Cronin’s recommendation that the
School Department pay the $30,000 owed to those teachers who
were underpaid and forget about the money that was overpaid to
the other group of teachers.

The motion was approved on a 4-0 vote, after committee member
Marianne Hartmann recused herself. Hartmann is a school nurse.

“I think it’s important for the public to understand, this is
not something that we are giving away,” said committee member
Rick Kraft. “We really made a very serious evaluation of this
in terms of what the impact would be if we to tried to collect
that money [that was overpaid]. And doing that would have had
such a negative impact on the teaching environment and the
school environment that really the best thing to do is just
move on from here.”

Cronin explained that the amount of money involved was much
less than 1 percent of the school’s $26 million budget.

“The work that was done with the union here is fabulous and I
would like to keep that feeling alive,” Cronin said. “We are
talking small money, especially given the cost involved in
trying to collect backpay that goes back to 2003 and that would
eat into any money that we would collect anyway.”

“The committee is very, very committed to the building of the
trust and the building of collaboration [with the teachers],”
Superintendent Lynne Celli said. “I would like to personally
thank the committee for taking this position, and it’s most
appreciated.”

A dozen or so teachers attended the meeting, including
Swampscott Education Association official Jon Flanagan, who
thanked the committee after their vote.