Grand Forks Public Schools officials and union negotiators briefed the board on a review of extracurricular pay that district staff said aimed to correct longstanding errors and inequities but has produced unintended negative outcomes for some veteran coaches.

Mike Biermeyer, district activities director, told the board the review examined contract weeks, base factors and experience increments across activities. "The goal was not for any one of us to look at this and say, how can we pay our coaches more or how can we find ways to save the district money," Biermeyer said. Instead, he said the office sought to "right size" weeks and align compensation with actual season lengths; the review adjusted weeks for 16 activities and moved experience increments from a flat-dollar model to a percentage-based model.

Joe Drumm, GFEA vice president and chief negotiator, described how the change to experience pay generated unforeseen losses for long-serving coaches. "Individuals at the top end, 15-plus years of experience, have seen a decrease in their pay anywhere from $1,000 to over $3,000 for their contract," Drumm said, adding that he asked human resources to produce a comparison after coaches raised concerns. He provided the board a set of calculations showing that while more contracts increased than decreased, several veteran coaches experienced substantial drops.

Coaches who spoke to the board described personal impacts. A middle-school coach who said he has coached for more than 20 years told the board his extracurricular pay for an unchanged role fell by roughly $2,100 year over year. Another coach said the net change on his September paycheck was a $10 increase, yet losses on multiple coaching contracts across the year would total several hundred dollars.

Administrators and negotiators traced the problem to several features of the previous system: prior experience pay used a flat-dollar weekly increment ($6 per week multiplied by weeks and years of experience) that the district moved to a percentage-of-base approach (3% per year up to a maximum). Biermeyer said the percentage approach is commonly used by other districts because it better aligns pay with workload and base salary. He noted that some activities required increases in the number of weeks paid to align with actual season length (for example, student congress and some music productions), while others had weeks reduced.

Board members asked about communication during bargaining, pension impacts and whether the negotiated agreement could be reopened. Negotiators said the change originated in the multi-year fact-finding envisioned by a memorandum of understanding (MOU) begun during the 2023 negotiation cycle; the district and GFEA intended the MOU to produce an accurate extracurricular FTE count, align weeks to known schedules, and compare rates to peer districts ahead of 2025 negotiations.

Drumm proposed a short-term fix using the negotiated-agreement language to restore pay for those who saw the largest cuts while broader changes are finalized. "Handout f presents a solution, which is by no means a full fix, but will alleviate the perceived error in the short term," he said. Board members asked for follow-up data and legal advice about whether changes could be implemented before the next formal negotiation cycle.

Ending: Trustees asked administration and union representatives to continue fact-finding and to return with proposals, calculations and legal counsel about timing and remedy options. No board action was taken at the meeting.