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(Continued from Page 1) than what is sought by the teachers if salary was based on merit.

“The preacher in me is coming out,” Estabrook replied, noting "the crying need for working together" on school issues. He took exception to Eastham's characterization of the draft budget figures as a "practical joke", maintaining that if the board decides it can’t afford the requested pay scale, “we should look each other in the eye and say no."

Eastham responded that his words were "impractical joke", still insisting that was an apt description of the requested 21 percent pay increase.

10.4 Percent Unrealistic Nancy Reeve voiced her support for an indexed pay scale. "I don't think we can realistically get 10.4 percent through...We could work with the index using a different percentage increase at the base." (Under the RCEA proposal, salary for beginning teachers serves as base for a pay scale that calls for percentage increases of that base salary for years of experience: three percent lor years one and two, four percent for year three, then dropping back to three percent for years four through six. four percent for years seven and eight, then three percent increases of base salary for years nine through lb. After lb years in the system, the index scale would provide two percent raises at the 20 year point, at the 25 year point and again at the 30 year point. With an index scale, after 30 years of teaching, an individual would be making 157 percent of the starting salary for that year.)

"Trying to live on $13,000 a year is a very difficult place to be.” said Randall Updike, pointing out that 75-85 percent of the county's teachers make $13,000 or less annually. The indexed salary scale “makes a whole lot of sense to me.” he said. When persons come into a job, they don't look just at their first

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