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Health & Fitness

Salary, not Wages & an Interest Free Loan

In Washington state, teachers sign personal service contracts for a specified number of days of work and for a specified salary. They do not earn wages, as some folks think, but are paid a salary that is “intended” to compensate for the effort necessary to carry out the duties. 

Rather than pay teachers each month for the number of days of contracted work in that month, the districts withhold portions of those earnings for later pay out. In effect, after mid-October, the districts are constantly in arrears on teacher’s pay until they deliver the last pay check at the end of August. 

Since every district’s budget contains a line item of income from the moneys earned by those withholdings, that amounts to an interest free loan from every teacher in the state to his/her district.

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