The Hamilton County school board will look into the ways the district pays stipends to athletic coaches after some members raised concerns about potential inequities.
Under the district’s coaching supplement model, teachers and other certified staff are paid a percentage of their salary. Classified staff, like electricians and educational assistants, are paid a flat rate.
School board member Jodi Schaffer, R-East Brainerd, pointed to an instance at one of the high schools in her district where the coach of the women’s basketball team made less than the men’s coach because the women’s coach gets paid the classified staff rate. Schaffer said she worried that could violate Title IX, the federal rules prohibiting discrimination based on sex.
“We have in my school an immediate inequitable situation for the same job,” she said at Thursday’s school board meeting. “It all boils down to classified versus faculty rates, and it’s going to expose us to liability.”
She made a motion to get rid of the classified designation and have all coaches be paid at the faculty rates.
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Several factors, including coach compensation, are used to ensure equity between athletics programs, board attorney Scott Bennett said. It’s something the district needs to explore, but he said he wouldn’t say any one factor creates a liability.
Historically, Hamilton County Schools‘ legal team has recommended paying certified and classified staff differently to avoid wage and hour issues, Bennett said. When the district pays classified staff for work outside their regular hours, it has to know whether they’re doing exempt work. Nonexempt employees are entitled to overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours per week.
For example, when the offensive line coach for a football team is teaching kids the rules and fundamentals of the sport, that work is exempt because they are acting as an educator, Bennett said. The difficulty comes with separating out a coach’s instructional work compared to everything else they do.
In some coaching positions, a person may also be managing scheduling or equipment. Then, he said, the work is considered nonexempt and the district would have to calculate overtime pay.
“The nature of what the coach does depends upon whether we get into some wage and hour troubles,” Bennett said. “That’s why we have consistently said, ‘Be very, very, very careful about this.'”
His recommendation, he said, is for the board to look at this issue broadly with an eye toward the potential Title IX concerns. Looking at the list of coaching supplements, he said he saw some discrepancies between sports.
“I think you’re on the right track,” Bennett said. “I just think that the fix needs to be a little bit bigger than what you’re suggesting, and I really do think that the board needs to look at this all at once.”
What the district may need to do, he said, is break down the coaches’ job descriptions and track the hours coaches are working on different things. That’s why, he said, the district has been reticent to do this.
“Tracking hours and being sued for title IX is a no-brainer,” Schaffer responded. “I don’t want to be sued.”
“It’s sort of like picking your poison,” Bennett said, noting that wage and hour and overtime lawsuits are also possible.
Schaffer tabled her motion, and the board voted to send it to the newly formed Athletics Committee. The committee will be chaired by school board member Steve Slater, R-Soddy-Daisy, who has pushed for increasing athletic coach stipends since at least February.
The district considered proposing flat rates for athletic coaches earlier this year as the result of a compensation study it conducted. Due to the tight budget year and the cost of implementation, it was not introduced.
Contact education reporter Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.