By Ann Doss Helms
ahelms@charlotteobserver.com

Current Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teachers won't take a pay cut under a proposed performance-pay plan, Superintendent Peter Gorman said Tuesday.

Gorman made the statement in response to widespread teacher concerns about changes to their pay and new tests being created to rate their performance. He said he had not been clear enough about his desire to avoid pay cuts because details of the plan, scheduled to debut in 2014, are still being hashed out.

"From where they are today, we have no intention to take dollars away from teachers," Gorman told a group of Observer journalists.

Gorman said he still doesn't know where CMS will find money to reward top-performing teachers. He said possibilities include designating new money for a performance-pay pool, limiting the new pay plan to newly hired teachers, asking county commissioners for extra money or even relying on a special tax.

Several committees, which include dozens of teachers, are working on the CMS plan.

Gorman started talking about tying teacher pay to student achievement before the economy crashed. The plan is getting increased attention because of teacher-effectiveness ratings based on 2010 state test scores, as well as dozens of new tests to rate teachers whose students don't take state exams.

Gorman initially said CMS would need extra money to make performance-pay work. Later, as the budget tightened, Gorman's top performance-pay official, Andy Baxter, began saying CMS would have to make it work with the same amount of money, which would likely mean some teachers would take cuts.

"Our timing didn't work out very well on this," Gorman said, adding that he believes it's important to keep moving forward on a plan he believes will ultimately benefit kids and teachers

Many teachers object to CMS altering pay and spending money on new tests as the budget shrinks and hundreds of teachers face layoffs.

Tuesday night, about 80 teachers, parents and students representing more than a dozen schools met at East Mecklenburg High to discuss strategies for resisting additional testing and performance pay. East Meck teacher Larry Bosc said Baxter had told him some teachers would likely take pay cuts to support performance rewards.

"I want Peter Gorman to be transparent and tell us: Whose salaries are you going to cut to fund this?" Bosc said.

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