Riverview Gardens School District teachers sue
for $763,663 in additional salary

Today the Riverview Gardens National Education Association filed a breach of contract lawsuit on behalf of its 350 teacher members against the Riverview Gardens School District. The lawsuit, filed in the St. Louis County Circuit Court, alleges that the District owes its teachers $763,663 in additional salary for the 2005-06 school year that just ended.

In May of 2005, the District’s Board of Education approved “contingency language” providing that if certain financial conditions were satisfied by February 15, 2006, the District would pay teachers additional salary according to a formula. The financial conditions were satisfied, the teachers claim, but the District refuses to pay the additional salary.

The amount sought in the lawsuit is far less than the $2.8 million in additional salary that would have come due if the Board of Education had not decided last summer to allocate $0.23 of its property tax levy to the District’s capital fund. This decision, which the District calls a “mistake,” cost the District over $2.2 million in State aid. The District is seeking permission from the State Board of Education to reallocate $568,883 in property tax revenues from its capital fund to its operating funds, in hopes of recovering the State aid it lost. If the District’s request is denied, it will lose an additional $6.8 million over the next seven years when a new school funding formula is being phased in.

“It is unfortunate that the District’s own actions caused it to forfeit over $2 million in State aid,” says Greg Jung, President of the Missouri National Education Association, which is the state affiliate of the plaintiffs’ teacher association. “The members of the Riverview Gardens National Education Association will do whatever they can to support the District in its quest to recover the lost aid. However, the District still received over $1 million more than it budgeted for the factors in the contingency formula, and the teachers are contractually entitled to 71.21 percent of this amount, or $763,663.”

The 33,000-member MNEA represents teachers, education support professionals, students studying to be teachers and those retired from teaching in public schools and on college campuses across the state. It is the Missouri affiliate of the 2.8 million-member NEA, the largest education organization in the nation.

July 25, 2006

For further information:
DeeAnn Aull
Phone 573-634-3202