To the Editor:

In his recent letter to the editor, Dick Graham (Worthington News, Nov. 25) criticized those of us who felt that teacher pay and benefit concessions should have been included as a part the adjustments necessary to balance the Worthington City School District budget.

Obviously, Mr. Graham and I have never crossed paths, because as one of those in the teacher pay concessions camp, answering his question of "How much should Worthington teachers be paid in salary and benefits?" is not all that difficult to me. Providing an understanding of what is happening with salaries and benefits is warranted.

Those of us working for private sector companies, especially those businesses that are in financial straits, are routinely being forced to take pay cuts and pay more of our benefits costs. Unlike public sector entities like the Worthington school district, which can threaten to provide reduced services to its customers (students) while maintaining the wages of its employees, private sector entities have had to reduce employees' salaries and benefits in order to ensure that customer needs are met so they can stay afloat.

The answer to Mr. Graham's question is not how much teachers and administrators should be paid, but how much they should be required to concede under a situation that finds the Worthington school district operating like a private sector entity in financial distress.

A review of private sector salary and benefit concessions in the current economic environment finds that a 10 percent reduction in wages and increased payment to 50 percent of benefit costs has been the standard. With teacher and administrator salaries in the Worthington school district costing over $50 million in 2009, requiring a reduction in line with those of us in the private sector would have reduced annual expenses by over $5 million -- and that does not even include impact of reduced benefit expenses. Clearly, this would have gone a long way toward reducing the $14 million budget shortfall that we taxpayers now have to fully absorb.

In advance of the contention that good teachers and administrators would be lost if salaries and benefits were reduced, I ask the simple question, "Where would they go?" Like those of us in the private sector, they too have homes, kids in school, and family and social connections, and are working in an environment where jobs are limited. Like those of us in the private sector, while frustrated by the pay cut, they too would have remained, learning to do more with less like the rest of us.

Next time Mr. Graham looking for a specific response to teacher pay concessions, he should look me up. I'll have an answer for him.

Guy Molde