The Portland, Oregon school district is furloughing teachers to help them qualify for state and federal unemployment benefits in an effort to avert layoffs next year.

Portland Public Schools cut teacher pay and work time by 20 percent, effective this week, to save money through the remainder of the school year, KATU reports.

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A district spokeswoman said the move will qualify employees for Oregon’s Work Share program, as well as $600 per week in extra unemployment benefits through the federal CARES Act.

“We need to do cost cutting measures. And this is a way we can do it without injuring our employees financially,” PPS spokeswoman Karen Werstein wrote to KATU in an email.

The plan to furlough all employees one day a week through the end of the school year will actually increase take-home pay, and it’s already met the approval of the Oregon Employment Department and all labor unions in the district, save the Portland Association of Teachers, The Oregonian reports.

PAT members are expected to vote on the plan Monday and Tuesday, while the school board is expected to take up the plan at a meeting Tuesday evening.

“Our goal is to protect as many PAT members as possible from possible layoffs next year, and by doing so, also protect workload for as many remaining professional educators as we can,” union leadership wrote to members Friday, KATU reports. “To that end, we are not against the PPS plan, but we have to have certain guarantees for all PAT represented professional educators.”

The Oregonian laid out exactly how teachers will rake in more for doing less with the scheme.

As first reported by The Oregonian, a little-known provision in the federal bailout package means workers in Oregon and many other states qualify for the full $600-a-week boost in unemployment payments if they lose as little as 10% of their pay due to coronavirus.

For example, a teacher earning $88,000 – the top run on the pay scale, where teachers who have master’s degrees and at least 12 years of experience are positioned – would lose about $460 a week in district pay. But that teacher would qualify for $600 a week from the federal rescue package plus about $130 from the state unemployment system. So weekly gross pay could rise from about $2,290 to about $2,595 – a raise of nearly 12% for doing less work.

For workers who earn less than $88,000, the percentage raise would be even larger, as $600 would further dwarf the weekly cut in their pay from Portland Public Schools.

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It’s unclear exactly how much the furlough plan will save PPS, but the district is anticipating a significant hit to its budget next year due to a drastic decline in income tax revenues, the main funding source for Oregon’s public schools.