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Show Teachers get biggest wage hike in eight years $17,104. Adjustments in wages according ac-cording to experience and training allow a maximum wage of $31,433 in Davis County for a teacher with a master's degree. The latest wage hike indicates a 35.6 percent increase in basic wages and experience increments over the past five years. Cost of living liv-ing increases over the same period have amounted to 22.5 percent, as measured by the consumer price index. in-dex. Foundation analysts also pointed out that the 1990 Utah Legislature appropriated $34.3 million for the career-ladder program, which supplemented sup-plemented the basic wages of SEE WAGE P2 By SCOTT SUMMERILL FARMINGTON Teachers in Davis County received an average salary increase of 9.6 percent this year, the largest salary increase since the 1982-83 school year. According to information released releas-ed by the Utah Foundation, a private tax research organization, the district raised teacher salaries by $1,518 for the 1990-91 school year. In addition, most teachers received an average normal experience increment in-crement of $830, which brought the overall average increase to $2,348. The increase exceeds mandated wage hikes established by the 1990 Utah Legislature, which stipulated that each professional employee of a school district who is under contract con-tract with the district shall receive a $1,000 increase in salary for fiscal year 1990-91. Most school districts were able to exceed the mandated minimum increase. Teachers entering the district this year with a bachelor's degree received a rninimum wage of Wage CONT. FROM PG.A-1 teachers throughout the state by an average of $ 1 ,900. Figures show that even with the increases handed out this year, ! teachers' salaries in Utah still fall short of national figures by more : than 15 percent ! However, the comparison with ; national figures lacks consideration of several factors. The peculiarities in Utah include: 1. The school system in Utah is growing and requires more new j teachers to be hired each year, most are hired at the lower end of the salary scale. In addition, the Davis j County Board of Education approv-! approv-! ed plans aimed at reducing class i size in October. Part of that plan in-; in-; eludes the hiring of nearly 38 : teachers at the elementary and secondary levels. The number of teachers needed at the high school level has still not been determined because of demographic shifts in boundaries and unknown per school student populations when the new high school in Layton opens. 2. Many of Utah's older teachers were persuaded to retire three years ago through an early retirement program, and most of the retiring teachers were at the upper end of the salary scale. 3. The state paid most, if not all, of employees share of school retirement costs as a fringe benefit, which analysts say adds 5 to 6 percent per-cent to the take home pay of teachers. 4. Though teachers are about 15 percent below the average national wage, Utah workers, as a whole, are around 1 4 percent below the national average of all workers. 5. The cost of living in Utah is between 8 and 12 percent lower than that of the rest of the nation. |