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Pay Comparison Details

 

Salary Schedule
Our seven step salary schedule is shown below. The yearly total is based on our '08/'09 calendar which includes 40 paid weeks.

Weekly Salary

Yearly Total

Step 1

$567.50

$22,700

Step 2

$580.00

$23.200

Step 3

$595.00

$23,800

Step 4

$620.00

$24,800

Step 5

$645.00

$25,800

Step 6

$675.00

$27,000

Head Naturalist

$725.00

$29,000

The salary shown above is paid consistently every week, regardless of whether it's a vacation week or a short week due to a Monday holiday. You are paid as a salaried professional rather than an hourly employee.

Other Schools
Another way to pay people, the method most outdoor schools use, is to pay you for actual time worked. When school is not in session due to a holiday like Thanksgiving or Spring Break, you don't get paid for that week. And if you have a short week caused by a Monday holiday like President's Day (for example), you get a bit less money compared to a normal 5 day work week. The upside is that this method results in a higher weekly rate.

Comparison
There is nothing inherently good or bad about either method of payment. Each has advantages and disadvantages. We have chosen to pay a consistent salary. Other schools have made a different choice, and that's totally OK.

But this difference creates a problem when comparing pay rates between different schools. If you just look at the weekly rate, you will be doing an "apples to oranges" comparison. To help you do an "apples to apples" comparison, we have calculated what our rates would look like if we were paying you for actual days worked instead of a consistent salary. Those rates are shown below.

Weekly

Daily

Hourly

Yearly

Step 1

$641.20

$128.24

$16.03

$22,698.48

Step 2

$655.20

$131.04

$16.38

$23,194.08

Step 3

$672.40

$134.48

$16.81

$23,293.20

Step 4

$700.40

$140.08

$17.51

$24,794.16

Step 5

$728.80

$145.76

$18.22

$25,799.52

Step 6

$762.80

$152.56

$19.07

$27,003.12

Head Naturalist

$819.20

$163.84

$20.48

$28,999.68

As you can see by comparing this chart to the one at the top of the page, the yearly total for each step is virtually identical, regardless of method. (The very small difference is caused by rounding up or down fractions of cents in the calculations). So if you get a consistent salary of $567.50 per week, you will make $22,700 for the year. If we paid you $641.20 per week for actual time worked, you would make almost exactly the same amount. Over the course of a year, a consistent salary of $567.50 per week is equivalent to a "days worked" rate of about $641 per week.

This comparison can be very helpful when evaluating the relative attractiveness of different jobs.

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© LACOSS, 2008
Last Revised: September 8, 2008
Comments or Questions? webmaster@OutdoorScienceSchool.org