Establishing the precedent
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alt Lake County's Jordan School District Board of Education has successfully completed its role as the stalking horse for other Utah boards of education. In the coming months, or maybe a year or two if they're really patient, other boards will increase their salaries and, perhaps, their benefits -- and they'll be able to thank the Jordan Board.
In July, Jordan School Board members voted to increase their own salaries by 400 percent -- from $3,000 per year to $12,000 -- and locked future salary increases to the Consumer Price Index. In addition, they gave themselves the option of being paid an additional $17,000 per year in lieu of health insurance.
Naturally, such blatant over-reaching by the board prompted searing criticism from virtually every sentient being who read the news. Not only did it appear foolish, but it was an affront to good taste.
So the Jordan Board members came back Tuesday and backed off part of their cash grab: They'll keep the $12,000 per annum salary bump, absent the automatic CPI adjustment, but will forego the option of taking $17,000 a year in cash if they don't sign up for the health insurance benefit (which they've always had).
This ever-so-slight backtracking provides a veneer of defeat, while the reality of the situation is that board members still got a 400 percent raise. Now, as other boards of education across the state begin hiking their compensation -- by 100 percent, 200 percent or even 300 percent -- it will look positively parsimonious by comparison.
To start the ball rolling for higher school board pay in Utah, it simply took a group of people who shared an unusual tendency toward self-congratulation -- good people otherwise, perhaps, but downright shameless when it comes to thinking they deserve a lot more taxpayer money to perform a job they begged voters to give them. And now, we suspect, they have precisely what they wanted.
The tumult was ugly, but not ugly enough to make them give back everything they had taken. Look for more modest versions of this scenario to play out in the coming years, perhaps right here in the Top of Utah.
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