Teachers, school board yet to reach contract agreement

By Diane Chiddister

Five weeks into the school year, the Yellow Springs Board of Education and the teachers union still have not reached a contract agreement.

Last week the union, the Yellow Springs Education Association, rejected the school board’s latest offer.

Most years, the teachers and school administration reach agreement before the beginning of the school year. Teachers union and board negotiators met twice over the summer and failed to reach agreement. The sides held a third meeting last Tuesday.

The union members’ vote against the offer “was overwhelming,” said Shawn Jackson, the union president who teaches social studies at the McKinney School. The union voted to reject the offer last Thursday.

Jackson said that the teachers and the school district are “still fairly far apart” on the issues of wages and health benefits.

The union and the board last negotiated a contract in 2004, reaching a one-year agreement.

At issue is whether a financially healthy school district should offer pay increases it can afford now but may not be able to afford in the future.

Due to potential cuts in state funding and rises in the cost of health insurance and fuel, the school board is choosing to take a conservative stance to maintain future viability, school board president Rich Bullock said. The board is using its five-year financial forecast to predict future costs and expenses, and wants to have a $100,000 carryover at the end of five years to address unexpected expenses, he said.

“We felt the only prudent course of action is to assume a steady state [of revenues] and be conservative,” he said.

In a paid letter, addressed to Jackson and published on page 5 in this week’s News, Bullock wrote that board members “recognize the contributions you make to the education and growth of our district’s children and recognize, too, that you are more than employees — you are colleagues and friends.”

The letter, which Bullock signed on behalf of the board, continues: “We also must recognize the limitations with which we must work to maintain the long-term health and financial stability of the school district.”

However, Jackson said, the school district is in an exceptionally healthy position, with a projected $3.8 million carryover in this year’s budget, which, according to Jackson, is the largest surplus in his 10 years’ experience as a union negotiator and three times the average surplus of Ohio schools.

Jackson also said the union feels it is “unrealistic” for the board to determine current salaries based on a five-year plan.

“Predictions five years out have never been accurate,” he said.

According to the school board’s letter, the board offered the teachers a two-year contract, in which each year teachers would receive a 1.5 percent raise in base pay and 1.5 percent cash payment. The raise is in addition to the annual raises built into the salary schedule for experience, which average 2.1 percent, and which teachers receive for their first 6 years with the district, then again at other intervals.

The offer also would change the teachers’ health care plan to the one currently used by administrators and staff, in which office visit co-pays are $15 and prescription drug co-pays are $8, $15 and $25, depending on the type of medicine.

Jackson called the offer “unacceptable and unrealistic.”

“It was way too low based on the current financial status of the district,” he said.

Jackson also stated that about a third of Yellow Springs teachers do not receive the annual step salary increase, because they have already reached the maximum level, 28 years, of experience.

The teachers are seeking wage increases that “keep pace” with the 3.3 percent rate of inflation, Jackson said, and are seeking to maintain their current health plan. The teachers’ plan includes co-pays of $10 for office visits and $5 and $10 for prescriptions.

The teachers also are seeking pay increases more in line with those the board negotiated last year with school administrators, whose pay raises were “at least 4 percent,” Jackson said. Last year, the teachers received a 3.75 percent pay raise.

“Some of the teachers are angry, some visibly upset, some felt not valued as professionals,” Jackson said. “To us,” he said, “this is a fairness issue and an equity issue.”

In the letter, Bullock wrote that “the teachers’ current health plan places a serious financial burden on the district; family coverage for one teacher under the current plan costs about $10,000 a year; the district pays $9,000 (90 percent) of it and 90 percent of all increases each year. With 55 teachers, that’s a huge cost that cannot be maintained.”

While the school district does currently enjoy a large surplus, a significant amount, $1,275,000, came as a one-time payment from The Antioch Company when it restructured. In the board’s letter, Bullock said, “we need to make that money, and the rest of the carryover, last as long as we can.”

The board further stated that state funding for public schools will be cut in two years, health care premiums are predicted to rise 15 percent in the next year and fuel costs are going up. The letter said that the district will “reluctantly spend that $3.8 million down over the next five years” to pay the increased costs, and needs a carryover of $100,000 at the end of that period.

But those increases in fuel costs also affect teachers’ lives, Jackson said. “These are all the same issues that teachers are facing in their budgets at home. We would at least like to keep pace with inflation,” he said.

Part of the school board’s caution is a promise made to the community when the school district successfully sought a school income tax in 2001, Bullock said. During the income tax campaign, board members said that the school district “would live within its means as long as we could. That’s what we’re trying to do,” Bullock said.

At the end of the letter, Bullock stated, “We’re eager to work together with you in the common enterprise of maintaining this district’s financial stability. If we can do that and have a projected carryover of $100,000 at the end of five years, everyone — you, the school district, the taxpayers and the children you so ably teach — will win.”

According to several board members, the letter was a collaborative effort, and the board is acting in unanimity. Other than that, the other board members chose not to discuss the issue, referring requests for comment to Bullock.

“The five-member board and senior administrators are intellectually and emotionally precisely of one mind on these matters,” board member Richard Lapedes said.

The union wants to keep negotiating, Jackson said, noting that after the union rejected the board’s offer he immediately e-mailed district officials, to say that the union “wanted to continue the process.”

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com