This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

A proposed overhaul of Jordan School District's salary system wasn't finished in time for Tuesday's school board meeting. But school board and union representatives say negotiations are ongoing and expected to be completed in the coming weeks.

"I can't imagine it's going to go past April 25," school board president Janice Voorhies said, referring to the board's next scheduled meeting. "You'll probably be able to hear us cheering when we finish."

The district is looking to fund across-the-board raises for teachers, while also boosting entry-level pay from roughly $34,500 to $40,000 and lifting the salary cap for veteran educators.

Those changes, as well as reforms aimed at increasing budget efficiency, are expected to cost an additional $10 million in annual payroll costs. It will initially be funded through budget reserves, Voorhies said, but will likely require a tax increase after four or five years.

In an email to The Tribune, Vicki Olsen, president of the Jordan Education Association, described the negotiations as "positive". She attributed the delay to the amount of fine-tuning required by the proposal.

"Because we are making such a dramatic change to the salary schedule," she wrote, "there are lots of little details that need to be worked out."

Voorhies gave a similar description of the process, adding that more time was needed to review how the changes would affect things like insurance and individual employee compensation.

"We have to look at how it affects as many individual employee's cases as possible," Voorhies said, "so that we don't make anybody's lives more difficult."

Canyons School District, which broke off from Jordan in 2009, is also reportedly working on a salary proposal that would lift first-year pay to roughly $40,000, up from $34,334.

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