The lead story in last week’s Chilkat Valley News reported that Haines teachers are paid less than other public school teachers in Alaska.
The story was true, but it wasn’t news. Haines teachers have been paid comparatively less than teachers elsewhere in Alaska for decades. We’ve been over this ground previously, many times.
First let me say that I believe our teachers should be paid more. If I ran the world, they’d be paid double what they’re getting, the police budget would be cut at least in half and the $100 million wasted making the Haines Highway smooth as a baby’s bottom would be going to scholarships for our high school graduates for the next 50 years.
But let’s talk about the world we live in. In that world, Haines teachers are paid pretty well. School board president Anne Marie Palmieri tried to say this in last week’s CVN story, but she didn’t go into detail because the explanation is bigger than a sound bite.
I will skip the blather about anti-intellectualism in American and citizens not valuing education as they should. Those are all true but they don’t explain why Haines teachers earn less than ones teaching elsewhere in Alaska.
The reason that teachers are paid lower in Haines is supply and demand. There will always be a supply of teachers wanting jobs here because Haines is among the most desirable places in Alaska to live, all factors considered.
(By the way, this is also the reason our town of just 2,500 people – in summer, anyway – boasts three grocery stores, hotels and motels, two lumberyards, three booze factories, dozens of nonprofits, and a steady flow of people moving here young and old, continually pumping new energy and money into a place that can look at times deserted.)
As much or more than any other place in Alaska, Haines is a place that people want to live, including Alaskans. Census numbers bear this out. In Alaska, 65 percent of residents are born out-of-state. In Haines, that number climbs to 75 percent. Studies also have shown Haines residents are among the best-educated in Alaska, in terms of holding college degrees and advanced degrees. People with skills and other opportunities seek out Haines.
Why Haines? Well, it’s very cold to the north and very wet to the south. Our town is on the road system but far enough away to spare us from crowds of out-of-towners. But it’s close enough to bigger towns that residents can shop at box stores, see a movie or eat at a good restaurant on a day trip. Canada, a foreign nation, is just 42 miles away.
Want more money? You can get it by working in a Bush village or even in Anchorage, but those places are extreme by Alaska standards. They’re either too crowded or too empty, too remote or too accessible. People who spend their careers in Alaska cities and Bush villages retire to Haines because it is right-sized. It’s small enough to escape lines and traffic lights but big enough to offer an arts center, a swimming pool and a public radio station. And compared to places like Sitka and Juneau, real estate here is cheap.
The fickle finger of fate has made Haines a very ideal place, at least by Alaska standards.
Now let’s take last week’s CVN story and instead of comparing the salaries of our teachers to those of other Alaska teachers, let’s compare teacher salaries to the salaries of other college-educated and professional people working in Haines.
People like doctors and medical clinic staffers, newspaper writers and radio reporters, executive directors and employees of nonprofit organizations, independent contractors, and the people who fix your computer, water heater or car. How do their wages stack up to wages of people with the same jobs in Anchorage or Sitka or Sleetmute?
Chances are those Haines professionals earn considerably less than their Alaska peers, too, and for the same reasons teachers here are paid less. Haines is a small town with a small tax base. For businesses, that mean a small number of potential customers. I worked more than 30 years for a newspaper with a very limited number of advertisers and subscribers. So I accepted a limited salary.
It’s a fair bet that most everyone working in Haines could make more money working elsewhere in Alaska. They don’t because they want to live in Haines. For them, the opportunity to live here more than makes up for differences in pay.
And those folks are the very same ones who vote in local elections and serve on the borough assembly and school board. Their judgment is that teachers here are paid the going rate, at least by local standards, and if you don’t like local standards, you can work elsewhere.