The Record · Fact check
“We haven’t seen a pay raise in three years.”
That is what Burbank Unified teacher Lynn Koontz Rothacher told the Board of Education on June 18, 2026. The district’s own published pay records show something different — her pay went up in each of the last three years on record.
1 · What she told the board
On June 18, 2026, at a special meeting of the Burbank Unified Board of Education, teacher Lynn Koontz Rothacher stepped to the public microphone and told the board, word for word:
“We haven’t seen a pay raise in 3 years.”
You don’t have to take our word for what was said. Watch the moment yourself.
▶ Watch on YouTube · if the player above does not load.
2 · What her own pay records show
A “pay raise” means being paid more than you were the year before. Burbank Unified publishes what it pays its employees, and that record contradicts the claim plainly: Mrs. Rothacher’s regular pay rose in every one of the last three posted years. Not once did it fall. The most recent year on file, 2024, brought a raise of about 7.5% over 2023.
| Year | Her regular pay | Change vs. prior year |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | $97,887.64 | baseline year |
| 2022 | $100,201.86 | +2.36% |
| 2023 | $106,891.79 | +6.68% |
| 2024 | $114,925.73 | +7.52% |
3 · The bigger picture
Mrs. Rothacher is not the household’s only Burbank Unified paycheck. Her husband, Rodney S. Rothacher, is also a career Burbank Unified teacher — he teaches at John Muir Middle School. Between the two of them, the district reported $1,166,739.21 in combined household pay and benefits over the four most recent posted years, 2021 through 2024.
Together that is $2,982,131.96 in district-reported pay and benefits across the twelve years on file. For context on the work year: under the Burbank Teachers Association agreement, the regular teacher work year is 187 workdays, including 180 instructional days. None of that is a knock on the work itself — it is simply the backdrop against which a “no raise in three years” claim should be weighed.
“Pay and benefits” is the employer-reported compensation figure — salary and other cash pay plus the district’s reported benefit cost. It is not the same as take-home pay.
4 · The full record, year by year
Nothing here is hidden. Below is the complete year-by-year compensation on file for both members of the household, so anyone can check the figures above against the source.
| Year | Rodney total | Rodney YoY | Lynn total | Lynn YoY | Household cash pay | Household benefits | Household pay | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $102,861.55 | n/a | $100,256.41 | n/a | $158,588.95 | $44,529.01 | $203,117.96 | n/a |
| 2014 | $94,500.08 | -8.13% | $99,269.08 | -0.98% | $171,647.00 | $22,122.16 | $193,769.16 | -4.60% |
| 2015 | $110,894.67 | +17.35% | $105,424.78 | +6.20% | $178,750.12 | $37,569.33 | $216,319.45 | +11.64% |
| 2016 | $117,293.69 | +5.77% | $112,248.39 | +6.47% | $187,606.27 | $41,935.81 | $229,542.08 | +6.11% |
| 2017 | $121,418.14 | +3.52% | $110,517.36 | -1.54% | $183,104.09 | $48,831.41 | $231,935.50 | +1.04% |
| 2018 | $124,592.22 | +2.61% | $115,246.94 | +4.28% | $188,208.83 | $51,630.33 | $239,839.16 | +3.41% |
| 2019 | $129,234.04 | +3.73% | $117,142.92 | +1.65% | $189,058.03 | $57,318.93 | $246,376.96 | +2.73% |
| 2020 | $131,160.04 | +1.49% | $123,332.44 | +5.28% | $196,035.06 | $58,457.42 | $254,492.48 | +3.29% |
| 2021 | $131,160.04 | +0.00% | $117,603.94 | -4.64% | $190,306.56 | $58,457.42 | $248,763.98 | -2.25% |
| 2022 | $143,656.79 | +9.53% | $152,176.21 | +29.40% | $228,986.71 | $66,846.29 | $295,833.00 | +18.92% |
| 2023 | $159,695.24 | +11.16% | $157,128.75 | +3.25% | $246,896.26 | $69,927.73 | $316,823.99 | +7.10% |
| 2024 | $163,947.58 | +2.66% | $141,370.66 | -10.03% | $234,265.68 | $71,052.56 | $305,318.24 | -3.63% |
“Rodney total” and “Lynn total” each mean that person’s reported pay and benefits for the year. Household cash pay excludes benefits; household pay includes them.
A note on tone
We are grateful for Burbank’s teachers. Good teaching is hard, important work, and it deserves respect. This page is not about anyone’s worth, and it is neither a poorhouse story nor a wealth story. It is narrower than that: when a specific factual claim — “no pay raise in three years” — is made to a public board, the public record gets to answer. Here, the record answers clearly, and it does not agree.