One Utah lawmaker has started issuing stark warnings to school officials regarding the raises legislators voted to give teachers earlier this year -- but those officials say they're not doing anything to warrant censure.

Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble, R-Provo, said he's worried that school districts across the state are planning to yank $2,500 across-the-board teacher salary increases after one year. The Legislature appropriated money for those raises earlier this year, but each school district sets its own pay levels.

"We intended it to be ongoing funding," Bramble said. "If the districts don't honor the intent of that pay raise ... I'm prepared to come back, as are some of my colleagues, and make it statutory."

Representatives of school districts, however, say they don't know what Bramble's so worried about, although questions remain about how the raises will be implemented.

"I don't know where he's getting that information from," said Kirk Sitterud, first vice president of the Utah School Superintendent's Association. "It's the position of the superintendents that we plan to meet the legislative intent with that money."

Steven Peterson, an officer with the USSA and the Utah School Boards Association, added that "there's still some study on how they're going to do it. It's a different situation than what we've had in the past."

The Legislature allocated money for the raises and a $1,000-per-teacher bonus this year. Last week, Bramble received an e-mail from an Alpine teacher who was worried that the district was going to use the money as a "one-time bonus" of $3,500 and then back it out of the salary schedules for subsequent years.

Bramble said he and other lawmakers took their concerns to state school Superintendent Patti Harrington, who he says confirmed that "all but about three districts" were planning on handling the raises that way.

Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, was also at that meeting.

"I don't remember the numbers," he said. "All I remember is she was concerned about some of the districts feeling they could change it after this year."

Harrington has not responded to requests for comment from the Daily Herald. Last week, Alpine district business administrator Rob Smith said salary negotiations hadn't started yet and that questions had arisen over whether the state would continue to fund the raises in the future. The answer was yes, he added.

Since last week, Bramble has gone to media outlets and castigated the idea of granting and rescinding the raises.

"They're basically now saying that they'll treat it as a one-time pay raise," Bramble said. "I would hope superintendents would recognize that this is not a very wise approach."

No one's using that approach, said Sitterud, although districts may have to be creative in doling out the raises.

That's because many districts have pay scales based on percentage increases between steps. A $2,500 increase at the lower levels compounds into a ballooning increase at higher pay levels, he said.

To get around that, districts are looking at paying the raise amount outside the pay table structure.

"It's not negotiated each year, but it would be paid as the Legislature intended it to be paid," Sitterud said. "The contract would be figured out as a salary schedule, and then the $2,500 would be added on top of that and divided over the 12 months of the year.

"It's not a bonus. Every teacher would get $2,500 each year."

Bramble wasn't mollified when told of the responses.

"I suspect that they're going to be diving for cover," he said. "They can try to spin it however they want."

Alan Choate can be reached at 344-2556 or atchoate@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1.