By: Jake Jarvis, Staff Writer | Posted: Feb. 16, 2018 | Source: WV News
CHARLESTON — Braving long lines in the pouring rain, hundreds of teachers once again left their classrooms Friday to fill the halls of the state Capitol.
Teachers from at least seven counties came to Charleston to demand lawmakers give them a bigger pay raise, protect their seniority rights and fix public employees’ health insurance.
“I’m here because enough is enough. I’ve waited too long,” said Lori Murray, a history and civics teacher at Spring Valley High School. “Insurance is important, and I shouldn’t have to work an extra job in order to afford insurance.”
Murray said that in her 15 years as a teacher, she has been OK with making a lower salary than teachers in other states because the state provided her with quality health insurance through the Public Employees Insurance Agency.
Teachers and other public employees have complained about proposed changes to the PEIA plan.
Gov. Jim Justice and Republican leaders in the Legislature want the PEIA Finance Board to freeze the plan until officials can come up with a fix next year.
For Murray, a freeze isn’t enough. She has three children, two of whom have special needs and require additional medical care that stress the family’s budget.
“If I said to my students, ‘You know what, we’re just going to leave this math problem here on the board and we’re not going to solve it.’ Does the problem go away? No,” Murray said. “It’s like a car. I don’t want my mechanic to just give me a temporary solution until my car breaks down on the side of the road, I’m paying you to fix it.”
PEIA’s finance board has hosted three public hearings around the state on a proposal to freeze the health plan as it is now for next year. Board members will meet and vote on that proposal Tuesday in Charleston.
Murray said she has seriously considered leaving the state to find a better paying position somewhere else. Her love for her students is keeping her here for now, but can only wait for so long.
“I’m not, as our Gov. Justice said, riled up,” Murray said. “I’m fed up. We’re fed up. We’ve been patient, and it has afforded us nothing. We’re treated poorly, and it’s not just teachers. It’s state workers alike.”
Many teachers stressed that their presence in the Capitol wasn’t just for themselves, but for all public employees covered by PEIA.
“We are all underpaid,” said Sheran Helmick, a teacher at Big Otter Elementary School in Clay County. “We live paycheck to paycheck. I’m trying to pay for my master’s degree right now to finish that. It’s very difficult, and with all the things they’ve taken from us, it makes it even harder when they can’t give us anything to offset it.”
The Senate passed a bill, backed by Gov. Jim Justice, to give teachers a 1 percent raise every five years. In all, that raise would give teachers $404 extra a year, which state officials have said works out to be an approximate 1 percent raise for teachers.
Members of the House of Delegates amended the bill to give teachers a 2 percent raise in the first year, followed by three years of consecutive raises. The Senate has yet to concur with the change.
Helmick said the 1 percent raise would only add about $25 to her wallet every month, after taxes. Ashley Steele, a sixth grade math teacher at Milton Middle School, said the $404 extra could pay for her gas bill this month, but that’s about it.
Steele worries that if lawmakers punt the PEIA problem to after the November election, teachers will lose some of their steam.
“It seems kind of like smoke and mirrors,” Steele said. “They’re going to freeze it right now and maybe appease us now, but what’s going to happen in 17 months when it’s not election time?”
Jake Jarvis can be reached by phone at 304-935-0144, on Twitter at @NewsroomJake or by email at jjarvis@statejournal.com.
