Is The Salary on The Contract Actually What Is Being Paid?

baydoti on 07/02/2025 - 11:05
Last edited 07/02/2025 - 11:05

Hi everyone. Some advice needed: A friend of mine just got a new contract at private independent school. Not yet qualified to be a full teacher as no NESA number but will be later in the year .

Offer letter/ contract states states annual salary of $86,417 + super

Also from the contract: “You will be required to work 200 days in a year less any public holidays.
Your rate will be averaged to include payment during non-term periods.
Your hourly rate will be $37.80.”

My question is , are they actually on / making $87k pa.? They received their first payslip yesterday and it $2308 net a fortnight or 76k pa when put into the pay calculator website. They expected approx $2600 net.

Something seems off. If I was told my annual salary is $86k , I am expecting an annual salary of $86k or $2600 net a fortnight.

Also the annual salary figure of $86k is not mentioned anywhere on the the payslip, only the hourly rate

Education & Work

Comments

  • Benoffie on 07/02/2025 - 11:13
    +2

    No.

    Generally teachers are on a pa wage tier.

    This is then broken down to the term then FTE %

    Unless the person is on a 12 month 1.0 FTE contract they will never receive that full amount.

    No, they're not being diddled. Welcome to contract teaching. Sucks, right?

    Question - what is the start and end date? Because 200 days tells me it's not a 12 month contract

    • loulou1 on 07/02/2025 - 11:47
      +7

      200 days sounds like school days. Four ten week terms and five days a week.

      • Benoffie on 07/02/2025 - 13:42
        +2

        Exactly. But it's still not a 12 month contract. So it will exclude the Xmas holiday period (Dec mid to Jan 31). As a result, the full pay tier is never realised.

        Also, no annual leave

  • Trying2SaveABuck on 07/02/2025 - 11:15

    Assuming and a 12 month contract and you are being paid for 38 hours a week to be earning $86417 your hourly rate shoulder be $43.733 p/h

  • djkelly69 on 07/02/2025 - 11:15

    I am not sure about teachers, but I understand admin staff at schools get their (nominal) annual pay amount pro-rated because they don't actually work a full year. So for your friend, since working 200 days is less than a 'normal' full working year (~225 days?), I guess that is what happened.

    • baydoti on 07/02/2025 - 12:22
      +3

      Agree. I think this is what happened . I have never heard of a job that claims an annual salary that is actually impossible to make.

  • mskeggs on 07/02/2025 - 11:16

    What tax calculator did you use?

    • baydoti on 07/02/2025 - 12:23

      Paycalculator.com.au default options, no hecs

  • Protractor on 07/02/2025 - 11:28
    -7

    Salaried contracts reflect the gross (before tax) rate, don't they?

    Clearly 'your friend' aint to maffs teacher,innit?

    • djkelly69 on 07/02/2025 - 11:47

      On the contrary, I hope you are not an English (particularly reading and comprehension) teacher.

      • Protractor on 07/02/2025 - 12:17
        +1

        Nuffin rong wiff mie Inglish mait.

      • arkie0 on 07/02/2025 - 15:12

        no ting wong wif his ingrish, it beri goot

    • baydoti on 07/02/2025 - 12:25

      I thought you would be smart enough to differentiate between when I say 86k pa (gross) and $2306 (net)

      • Protractor on 07/02/2025 - 12:28
        -5

        I thought you'd be smart enough to make is sound like that was what you meant, in the core of the question..Know your audience.

        • baydoti on 07/02/2025 - 12:30

          I know the ozbargain audience well. They are a smart bunch.

  • original15 on 07/02/2025 - 11:28
    +2

    Were they paid for a full fortnight?

    • baydoti on 07/02/2025 - 12:26

      Yes $2308 net. I don’t recall the tax / gross / super figures but it was all online with the net figure.

      • ste616 on 07/02/2025 - 13:33
        +1

        What is being asked was if the first pay was for 10 days work.

        To go another way: $2600 (what you expect) / 10 = $260 per day (ie. $32.50 net per hour, if they work 8 hours). Multiply this by 9 and you get $2340, which is suspiciously close to your $2308 number. Indeed, it's very close to $32 less than $2340.

        That is, it sounds like your friend started at 9am on a Tuesday when working hours are 8am - 4pm Monday - Friday.

  • elgrande on 07/02/2025 - 11:53
    +3

    Do they have a hecs debt

  • freefall101 on 07/02/2025 - 11:56
    +1

    Are they paying off any HECS debt or any other debt?

    I assume the key bit is this though

    Your rate will be averaged to include payment during non-term periods.

    Annual salary might be $87k, but they're only working 200 days a year (presumably due to school holidays) so it's pro-rata.

    • baydoti on 07/02/2025 - 12:25

      No hecs debt.

  • jv on 07/02/2025 - 12:16
    -5

    salary of $86,417 + super

    That's not bad for an unqualified teacher who gets 2 months holidays per year…
    Not sure why they complain all the time…

    • Protractor on 07/02/2025 - 12:21
      -2

      They don't. Their "friends" do.
      And parents whinge about teachers, as do internet trolls,apparently.
      AI will soon make teaching jobs obsolete anyway. The moaners will need a new football. Good luck ostracising AI.

      • jv on 07/02/2025 - 12:44
        +3

        They don't. Their "friends" do.

        That sounds about right…

    • baydoti on 07/02/2025 - 12:29
      +4

      After seeing what deal with on a daily basis and the amount of unpaid late night work , marking, setting curriculums etc I can confidently say teachers are underpaid for what they do.

      • jv on 07/02/2025 - 12:44
        -2

        I can confidently say teachers are underpaid

        nah…

        • Crow K on 07/02/2025 - 14:14
          +3

          We know you don't see the value in education but take the word of people who've had one, jv - it's pretty good.

      • star-ggg on 07/02/2025 - 13:27

        i'm genuinely curious how they find time to mark and plan classes if they need to teach 6 hrs a day and don't work during school holidays?

        • Protractor on 07/02/2025 - 16:08
          -1

          Todays kids unlearn more from social media than learnt in school.

  • trapper on 07/02/2025 - 13:22
    +1

    Looks like the contract is for $86,417 pro rata for the days actually worked.

    And then they average this out over the whole year so he would still be getting paid during the term breaks.

    • baydoti on 07/02/2025 - 13:25

      Yes exactly.

      But is this technically a salary of $86k a year though? If they wanted a loan and the bank asked what is your salary , they can’t prove it’s $86k with the income being deposited

      • MS Paint on 07/02/2025 - 13:43

        Banks want payslips with specific details not just…

        Yeah nah mate I make about 86 Kay ya know.

      • trapper on 07/02/2025 - 13:46
        +2

        they can’t prove it’s $86k

        It's not $86k, it's equivalent to $86k if the full year was worked.

      • Benoffie on 07/02/2025 - 13:47
        +2

        Being a contract teacher, I can tell you that banks are well aware of this and will ask for the following:

        • copy of the contract
        • copy of employment registration
        • copy of 3 months pay slips
        • copy of generally last 3 year's income

        Unfortunately, they will still penalise the person. In my last application, my income counted for very little due to lack of permanency

  • sacah on 07/02/2025 - 19:43

    Have a look at the payslip and see if tax was deducted.
    My wife works contracts at a private school and they pay the first lot of pays without minusing tax until you hit the threshold, which means you can't expect to get this same amount each fortnight.
    Look on the contract for the hours per day, then
    Contract hours * $37.80 * 200 days, then plug that into the ATOs calculator and you'll get your take home.

  • jemson on 08/02/2025 - 08:30

    $86,417 + super

    Sounds like this was incorrect put into the accounting system as $86,417 incl super to calculate the hourly.

    $86,417 = $77,504 + 11.5%
    $77,504 / 52w / 40h is pretty close to the hourly rate on pay slip.

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