Seattle's Teachers Refused to Take 85 Cents on the Dollar
Paid in warrants the district could not back, 140 educators asked voters to bond the school debt so their salaries would be worth face value.
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More than 140 public-school teachers met in a Seattle school building yesterday afternoon to discuss how to get full value for their salary warrants—the paper IOUs the district issued in place of cash. A finance committee consisting of L. C. A. Taylor, principal of the South School; O. G. Jones, principal of the Denny School; and W. D. Gerard of the Rainier School reported that the warrants were being discounted so heavily that teachers were losing part of every paycheck. Superintendent Frank J. Barnard presided.
The teachers adopted a resolution asking the school board to submit a bonding measure to voters, enough to fund the district's outstanding warrants and put its credit on a firm footing. Each teacher received a petition to circulate before the board meeting tomorrow evening. It asked citizens to support bonding so that warrants issued to employees "shall be worth face value, and not subject to discount."
According to the committee, Tacoma school warrants sold at a premium and county and state warrants at par, while Seattle school warrants—though drawing the same rate of interest—stood at a 5 percent discount. Recently the teachers' committee had been able to get only 85 cents on the dollar. Taylor said the discount had been running for a year and four months, taking from 1 to 5 percent each month, and estimated the total loss to the city's teachers at $1,000 to $7,000 a year. Salaries had already been reduced, he said, and the extra loss was "a hardship that is hard to bear." The committee had been unable to find buyers and recommended the bonding plan after consulting members of the board of education.
“Their salaries were reduced last year and when they are compelled to suffer an additional reduction on their warrants being discounted, it causes a hardship that is hard to bear.”
In 1895, Seattle teachers were paid in warrants that circulated at a discount, so a promised salary was not a paid salary. The fight rhymes with modern debates over late wages, payday-style fees and public-employee pay—and with the way municipal credit problems get pushed onto the people who do the work.
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