Annually the Oregon Department of Education is responsible for calculating the minimum pay rates for substitute teachers in Oregon Public Schools. The daily salary is defined as “the prior year average annual salary of beginning teachers who hold a bachelor's degree divided by 190 days”.

An ODE Executive Memorandum for the 2020-2021 school year stated the following rates for substitutes:

• 5-day a week schools are $189.32 per day ($42,318 divided by 190 times 85%).
• 4-day a week schools are $212.98 per day (the 5-day rate $189.32 times 1.125).

In situations where a substitute is needed to teach for more than 8 consecutive days (4 day a week schools) or 10 consecutive days (5 day a week schools) there is an additional law guiding the calculation for long term sub rates.

Substitute teachers are paid either directly by the district or through the Educational Service District where the school in need is located. They are paid wages only and are currently not eligible for other benefits. Benefits that are collectively bargained by year-round employees of a school district. These benefits may include reimbursement for continuing education, additional pay for extra duty activities, PERS contribution rates and health insurance.

HB 3130 introduced by Representative Courtney Neron (D-Wilsonville) looks to expand some collectively bargained benefits to substitute teachers by considering them employees of school district.

A teacher employed as a substitute teacher for one or more days at a time by the same school district shall be considered an employee of the school district and eligible for retirement benefits as an employee (PERS) and eligible for health benefit plans as an eligible employee.

Substitute teachers often work for multiple districts and each of those districts typically have different collective bargaining contracts with regards to benefits. School districts and local teachers’ unions negotiate many contractual provisions, but one negotiated item is health insurance contribution rates. For example, a district may pay 100% of the benefit cost for fulltime employees and 50% for part-time employees. Those benefits are collectively bargained by the union representatives for the benefit of their members who are employees of the district. Substitute teachers are not a part of the collective bargaining units in any of the districts that they may choose to work in.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

This bill falls short of addressing critical questions. First, which district pays the benefit for the substitute teacher that works one or more days in school district A and one or more days in school district B? If a substitute works in multiple districts during the year, which collective bargaining agreement applies to the substitute teacher? The bill also states that the substitute teacher, after teaching for one or more days, shall be considered an employee of the district. Are they considered a full-time employee or a part-time employee and of which district and which collective bargaining agreement?

In addition, the bill has a retroactive portion which could cause financial obligations for school districts that have not budgeted for the additional cost. The bill states:

To the extent allowed by public employees’ retirement law and health benefit plans under ORS 243.105 to 243.285, a teacher shall be eligible for any benefits that would have accrued to the teacher under ORS 342.610 (5), as amended by section 1 of this 2021 Act, between the 2017-2018 school year and the effective date of this 2021 Act.

Not only could this be costly for school districts, but it could also be extremely hard to track. For the 2017-18 school year until today, districts could have re-negotiated collective bargaining agreements. So, if there is a benefit claim for 2017-18, does the school district where the substitute worked apply the formula from the collective bargaining agreement in place during the time of the claim, or apply the agreement that is in place currently? Does the substitute teacher make claims against multiple districts if they worked in more than one school district? Healthcare benefits would be impossible to do retroactively so the assumption is that the retroactive clause in Section 2 of the bill will only be applicable to PERS contributions, but again the bill is unclear.

The bill has yet to be scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on Business and Labor, so maybe these questions will be answered at that point in time.


--Terese Humboldt

Post Date: 2021-03-07 21:03:45

Last Update: 2021-03-07 21:18:46