Push for pay equity in Pittsburgh Public Schools moves needle on racial gap

Photo above by Giorgio Trovato via Unsplash.

Pittsburgh Public Schools has significantly reduced its racial wage gaps since last year. However, gender wage gaps persist.

Total earnings in Pittsburgh Public Schools remained steady in 2024 after a significant increase the previous year. PublicSource’s analysis of payroll data shows that the district paid $292 million in salaries and overtime in 2024, the same total as the prior year.

The median income for the district’s 4,429 employees in 2024 was about $65,900, a slight decrease from the previous year. Of those, 1,419 employees made more than $100,000, up slightly from 2023.

Full-time teachers across PPS schools, excluding early childhood centers, earned an average of $86,658. Teaching staff, including hourly adjuncts, day-to-day substitutes and other full-time teachers, were paid $166.3 million, about $3 million less than the previous year, likely because of vacancies and retirements.

Salaries account for nearly 46% of the PPS annual budget, though the district is working on a plan to downsize that may impact staffing in the coming years. Chief Financial Officer Ron Joseph said the budget department is waiting for board approval of the Facilities Utilization Plan before revealing any changes it may bring to the workforce.

Overtime pay increased

Superintendent Wayne Walters is the highest-paid employee in the district, taking home $282,913 in 2024, almost double the rate of the other district administrators and school principals at the top of the salary scale.

In previous years, a few employees from the maintenance department received high overtime pay, nearly $88,000 in one case, making them some of the district’s highest earners. This year, the highest overtime pay was $64,092, earned by a steamfitter in the maintenance department. The district paid $19.3 million in overtime and supplemental pay, a $2 million increase from the previous year.

Billy Hileman, president of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (PFT), said the district saw a huge increase in its technology inventory after the pandemic but did not increase the workforce to maintain the tech, requiring overtime from a lean staff.

“If they need so much overtime every year, maybe what they really need is more employees,” he said.

District spokesperson Ebony Pugh wrote in an email that overtime increases were caused by unavoidable situations, such as a water pipe break on a Sunday, which requires immediate attention regardless of the number of staff members.

(Click here to see a searchable table of PPS employee salaries in this article on PublicSource.com. Scroll down to locate the table.) 

Currently, there are about 120 vacancies in the district. Of those, 34 vacancies are in the curriculum and instruction department, 18 are in special education and 43 are in the operations department.

Racial wage gaps reduced, gender wage gaps increase

Black employees in the district, excluding substitutes, athletic coaches and hourly temporary staff, earned $71,286 on average. White employees earned an average of $74,699. In the previous year, Black employees earned more than $20,000 less than their white peers.

James Fogarty, executive director of non-profit A+ Schools, said the district might have narrowed the gap as a result of more employees reaching seniority levels, targeted recruitment efforts and raising the pay scale for roles like paraprofessionals — a position often held by Black and brown people.

A+ Schools is an independent nonprofit that studies the district and works with PPS in a partnership to reduce chronic absenteeism rates. PPS did not respond to questions asking about the reasons behind the narrowing of the racial wage gaps.

Female employees in the district make about $9,000 less than their male counterparts. Black women in the district make nearly $13,000 less than white men.

On average, female employees from food service and custodial departments are paid about $24,000 less than male employees.

While 86% of the district’s teaching staff is white and the majority of teachers are female, Black employees outnumber white employees in lower-paying positions such as paraprofessionals and food service workers.

Pugh said the majority of female custodial employees work 10 months a year, 5 ½ hours per day, while the majority of males in those positions work 12 months and eight hours per day, which could lead to the wage gap in those areas.

Among the teaching staff, Black women earned about $1,327 more than white women. On the other hand, Black men earned $3,142 less than white men.

Six PPS schools did not employ any Black teachers in 2024. While 51% of the district’s student population are Black students, only 25 schools have more than 10% Black representation on the teaching staff.

(Click here to see a searchable table of percentages of Black staff at each PPS location in this article on PublicSource.com. Scroll down to find the table.) 

Margaret Rudolph, chief human resources officer, said the district hired staff to audit pay equity and ensure there are no discriminatory practices and everyone is on the approved salary schedule.

Teachers make more than before

PPS employed 1,927 teachers, excluding day-to-day substitutes, in 2024 — about 30 fewer than the previous year. Of those teachers, 31% earned between $100,000 and $110,000.

Joseph said high salaries are dictated by the current market to stay competitive with other districts.

The district’s financial issues aren’t driven solely by salaries, he said. “We need our workers to deliver services, and we’re paying them a fair wage that we’ve collectively bargained.”

Two teachers in the district made over $140,000 in total earnings. Richard Murphy, a teacher at the arts magnet CAPA 6-12 was the highest-paid teacher, earning $147,540.

Eighteen teachers earned between $130,000 and $140,000, 10 more than the previous year, and 80 teachers were paid over $120,000.

The teacher’s union and the district agreed on a new bargaining contract for 2024 through 2028. A full-time teacher, hired before July 2010, with a bachelor’s degree, is paid about $45,380 in the first year. It would take 11 years for that teacher to earn the highest salary amount at $96,264. A teacher hired after July 2010 would make $111,486 when they completed 12 years in the district.

Forty teaching positions have been cut for the 2025-26 school year. The district did not have any furloughs last year.

The district employed 46 full-time substitute teachers in 2024, seven fewer than in 2023. Full-time substitutes earned an average of $31,597.

Day-to-day substitutes were paid $120 per day last year, though the rate has increased to $135 a day in the new contract. Hileman said there should be a significant increase in substitute pay to help schools where teachers are on leave.

“One of the things that is happening is teachers who need care and recovery and treatment, who aren’t at work because they can’t be, the fingers are being pointed at them because the district can’t get a substitute,” he said.

There were about 130 teachers on paid leaves of absence at various points in 2024. Fogarty said this creates various staffing issues in schools because they are unable to hire for that position even if a teacher might be on leave for months.

High staff turnover in some schools

Full-time teachers in the district had an average teaching experience of 15 years.

Teacher seniority is unevenly distributed throughout PPS schools, resulting in meaningful payroll variations between buildings. Fulton K-5 has the most experienced teachers in the district, with an average tenure of 21 years. Schiller 6-8, Arlington K-8 and King K-8 are at the lower end of teaching experience, where teachers have an average tenure of nine years.

The amount of teaching experience determines the salaries of teachers, according to the contract.

Teachers at Arlington were paid an average of $67,649, the lowest in the district. At Liberty K-5, South Brook 6-8, Fulton K-5 and Roosevelt K-5, the average salaries for teachers was over $100,000.

(Click here to see a searchable table of average teacher earnings in each PPS school in this article on PublicSource.com. Scroll down to find the table.)

Joseph and Rudolph said there are no specific efforts to move teachers with more experience evenly across the district, as transfers are dictated by the contract and the number of vacancies in a district.

(Click here to see a searchable table of average years of teacher experience at each school in PPS in this article on PublicSource.com. Scroll down to find the table.)

Hileman said any layoffs resulting from school closures could impact teachers with the least experience.

Fogarty said often schools with higher rates of poverty and unstable building leadership end up with less experienced teachers because they are deemed less desirable.

“If you had more staff under one roof, you’re likely to have a bigger spread and greater equity in terms of pay and per-pupil spending in those buildings, because you have a more diverse — in terms of experienced — staff under one roof,” he said.

Where do teachers live?

The 2024-2028 bargaining agreement removed the residency rule, which required many PPS staff — including paraprofessionals, custodians and food service workers — to live in the city.

In 2024:

• 15% of teachers lived in ZIP codes that are entirely in the city
• 55% of teachers lived outside the city
• 30% of teachers live in ZIP codes that cross city boundaries, so residency is unclear.

Hileman said he believes lifting the residency requirement will result in a wider applicant pool for those positions and help to solve the district’s shortage issues.

Rudolph, though, said her department needs time to evaluate the impact.

This article, written by Lajja Mistry (K-12 education reporter at PublicSource) and fact-checked by Abigail Nemec-Merwede, first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.