Lowest Paid in the Hawaii Department of Education
If following the Hawaii Department of Education‘s money is supposed to lead us to where its priorities are, it will lead us far away from the school health office. And the security office.
An analysis by Civil Beat of salaries across the statewide system revealed that school health aides and security attendants are among the lowest-paid of all the department’s employees. State employee benefits, which are typically more generous than private sector benefits, can help mitigate low salaries.
Even so, at least 246 employees, all school health aides, could qualify for federal nutrition assistance of up to $314 a month, based on the low end of their salary ranges. At most, as many as 903 of the department’s employees, or 4 percent, could qualify.
At an operating cost of $2.1 billion per year, the public school system is the state’s largest single expense, accounting for 40 percent of the state’s general fund budget each year.1 About $1.2 billion of that pays the salaries of the roughly 22,000 workers who contribute to running its 267 schools. An additional $450 million pays for their fringe benefits.
Civil Beat filed a request under the state’s open records law with the department’s Office of Human Resources asking for the names, positions and salaries of all the department employees. To read other stories based on our analysis of the data: Civil Beat Shares Department of Education Salaries, Highest Paid in the Hawaii Department of Education and Education: Where the Boys Aren’t.
Given that the state is not required to share actual salaries for union workers, it’s impossible to know the exact lineup. But the data provided to Civil Beat shows that the lowest paid employee in the state is almost certainly a school health aide. The pay for that job ranges from $18,078 to $27,787 annually. (Under state guidelines that went into effect Oct. 1, a single person earning up to $24,936 is eligible for federal nutrition assistance of up to $314 a month.)
School health aides are not full-time workers — putting in something like 6.5 hours per day — and they work just 10 months of the year, said Acting Deputy Superintendent Ronn Nozoe.
Health aides are not nurses, he explained. They need only a high school diploma or equivalent to perform their duties, which include administering emergency first aid, checking students into the school health room and putting out their doctor-prescribed medicine.
In the department’s second lowest pay range, 221 school security attendants earn between $20,540 and $31,640. These are full-time, 10-month employees who perform day-to-day security functions at the school level. Security attendants are expected to monitor the campus, assist with maintaining order, stop unauthorized visitors and help with evacuations in cases of emergency.
Education assistants fall into the third lowest salary range of $21,390 to 32,900.
Earning only slightly more than that, seven clerks make between $21,948 and $33,756.
One library assistant makes between $22,776 and $35,064.
In the next range, 286 education assistants make between $23,130 and $35,570 (still qualifying for aid with their starting salaries).
Four clerk typists and 49 clerks earn from $23,688 to $36,516.
The final category of employees who could qualify for aid with their starting salaries are 36 library assistants. Their annual wages range from $24,648 to $37,968.
All nine positions are represented by Bargaining Unit 03 of the . The starting salaries for union positions are set by the department and are not negotiable, spokeswoman Jodi Chai told us.
Nozoe said the department sets entry-level salaries based on the average wages for similar job classifications across the state.
Although the department sets the entry-level salaries, the union can negotiate a schedule of increases. But the organization has other members in various job classifications whose low-end salary ranges qualify them for federal aid, Chai said, adding that the median income for members in Bargaining Unit 03 is about $35,000.
“This is an argument we’ve made in negotiations for years, for raising the salaries of our members,” Chai said. “This, paired with an increase in medical premiums, is a hardship for our members. We know there definitely are some employees that have salaries that fall into that low range, and that’s the reason we make that argument.”
But the disparity between lowest- and highest-paid positions in the department isn’t as great as the one between the lowest- and highest-paid employees in the University of Hawaii system. The position with the highest salary cap goes to principals, who can earn up to $155,782. That is about nine times a school health aide’s starting salary.
