October 20, 2005

By Diane Chiddister

Relations between the Yellow Springs Board of Education and the Yellow Springs teachers union became more strained at the school board’s meeting last Thursday night when nine teachers, who had come to address the board, walked out.

The group of teachers left after the board took the unusual step of moving the “Community Concerns” portion of the meeting, which occurs toward the beginning and during which the teachers would have spoken, until later in the meeting.

School board president Rich Bullock later said that he decided to rearrange the meeting agenda because “it seemed important that the teachers hear” the board’s presentation of its five-year forecast.

Bullock moved the Community Concerns part of the agenda until immediately after a presentation on the district’s five-year forecast, which he had moved up from its originally scheduled spot to close the beginning of the meeting.

The teachers took the board’s action as a sign of disrespect, Shawn Jackson, the president of the teachers union, said Friday.

“It was an obvious attempt to inconvenience the teachers,” Jackson said. “It was gamesmanship, pure and simple. We chose not to be treated in that manner.”

When told of Bullock’s explanation of the schedule change, Jackson said, “We’re not stupid. We understand the five-year forecast. We don’t need to be lectured to.”

The board and the teachers union, formally called the Yellow Springs Education Association, have not yet reached agreement on a new teachers’ contract.

Usually, contract negotiations are finalized before the start of the school year. The board and the teachers union met twice over the summer and once in September and failed to reach an agreement.

The union last reached a contract agreement with the school board in 2004.

Last week, the teachers union rejected a new offer from the school board, which had been offered after Jackson and other teacher representatives met with Superintendent Tony Armocida and Treasurer Joy Kitzmiller the week before to discuss the district’s financial situation.

At issue are wages and the teachers’ health benefit plan, according to Jackson.

The teachers requested that the federal negotiator, who had previously met with the two sides, be brought back to the bargaining table. Jackson said teachers are eager to continue negotiations.

“We’re still very interested, very committed to the negotiations process,” he said.

According to the five-year forecast Kitzmiller presented during last Thursday’s meeting, the board’s latest offer to the teachers included a 3.5 percent raise for 2006, 2.5 percent for 2007 and 2.25 percent for 2008. The offer also stipulated that the teachers change their health plan to one currently used by school staff and administrators, which includes a $15 copay for office visits and a $8/$15/$25 pharmaceutical copay. The teachers’ current health plan includes a $10 copay for office visits and a $5/$15 pharmaceutical copay.

Jackson said the teachers rejected the offer partly because the proposed 2007 and 2008 wage increases were significantly below the inflation rate. In addition, the teachers felt uncomfortable that the offer included stipulations for reopening negotiations in future years should the district’s funding change, he said. The reopening language also seemed unfairly weighted towards the board’s discretion without an equal opportunity for teachers, Jackson said.

The teachers assert that the school district is in its healthiest condition ever, with a $3.8 million surplus, which is three times the state average, the union states in a paid letter that is published in this week’s News.

“We are also disappointed that the Board would place preconditions or ‘parameters’ on negotiations. Setting preconditions to negotiations, in our opinion, is not harmonious with good faith bargaining,” the teachers say in the letter.

In the letter, the union also states that in 2004–05, the board approved a 4.25 percent salary increase for Armocida with an additional 1 percent step increase, for “an effective salary increase of 5.25 percent.” Kitzmiller received a 4.25 raise with an additional 1.25 percent step increase, the letter states.

According to the treasurer’s report that Kitzmiller submitted to the school board for last week’s meeting, the board has set the parameter that the contract negotiations be based on the school’s five-year financial plan, and that it allows the school system to retain at least a $100,000 cash balance by 2010.

Bullock has said that the board requires the district to carry a surplus to deal with unexpected financial demands.

According to Kitzmiller’s report on the five-year forecast, the plan shows that, including figures based on the board’s last offer to the teachers union, in five years the school system would have a $106,487 balance. It also predicted a year-end balance of $3,258,885 at year’s end in 2006, $2,629,391 in 2007, $1,812,735 in 2008 and $1,031,926 in 2009.

The forecast is based on projected increases in health care plans of 5.5 percent for 2006, 14 percent for 2007 and 15 percent for all years after, according to Kitzmiller, who said she had been advised by the Education Purchasing Coop to project those increases.

The five-year forecast also includes recently negotiated salary increases of 1.5 percent, with additional 1.5 percent cash for two years, for administrators and employees John Gudgel, Christine Hatton, Jody Chick, Teresa Newton, Susan Griffith, Eva Anderson, Sharon Horne and Jacob Stebert.

The forecast also assumes that state guarantee funding, which currently accounts for 40 percent of the school system’s total funding, will continue at its current level, which this year is $1,047,351.

In the past few months, the district was notified that state funding would be cut in two years, but currently it is assumed that the funding will continue, according to Kitzmiller, who also wrote that the state guarantee funding is not stable and the school system needs to keep an eye on it.

The most recent contract offer made by the school system to the teachers included the possibility of reopening negotiations should there be any change in the state guarantee funding amount.

The five-year forecast also includes diminished income from personal property taxes, including the elimination of the $10,000 small business exemption tax reimbursement over the next 10 years, which began in 2004. Total personal property tax collections have decreased by 37 percent since 2002, according to Kitzmiller’s report. Much of this loss “can probably be attributed to the closing” of Vernay Laboratories’ Yellow Springs plants, she wrote, although some can be attributed to the phaseout of the small business tax.

While the five-year forecast has “in the past been criticized as being too conservative,” Kitzmiller said, “it is based on the best current information we have.”

The teachers union asserts that the five-year forecast has been generally inaccurate in the past, with the largest discrepancies in the projected figures furthest in the future.

According to Ohio Department of Education figures that the teachers union quotes in its paid letter, the schools projected in 2001 that Yellow Springs would end the 2005–06 fiscal year with a deficit of $730,608, when its actual surplus was $3.8 million, a difference of $4,530,608. The 2002 five-year forecast predicted the district would have a surplus of $693,360 in 2005–06, the letter states.

However, school board members emphasized that the large surplus resulted from a onetime payment from The Antioch Company when it restructured, and that the restructuring also means the school system will no longer receive the company’s tax dollars in future years.

Board members have said that they need to be cautious in holding onto the surplus to address unexpected financial needs.

Board member Mary Campbell-Zopf asked if other school districts have dealt with similar situations in which they received a onetime large cash payment.

Armocida said he is not aware of other districts dealing with the same issue. The onetime payment is “a very unusual situation,” he said.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com