After more than six months of negotiating, Hollister School District officials and the California School Employees Association chapter 625, which represents classified staff, came to an agreement on an employee contract that included concessions from both sides. The Hollister School Board ratified the contract at a special meeting Feb. 7.
The long process, in which school officials and the union could not come to an agreement on their own, included state mediation, a fact-finding panel and eventually a fact-finding report before the CSEA chapter submitted a proposal to which district officials agreed.
In maintaining a projected balanced budget for the current school year and two additional years, school officials said they would need to cut some of the general fund budget costs for the coming years – more than 90 percent of which is used for salaries and benefits. They had initially sought a reduction in the amount the district pays for health benefits to the same level the teachers union agreed to – with an annual cap of $10,600 per employee. They also asked that the classified staff take a reduction in salary of a quarter percent.
The eventual contract – proposed by CSEA after the fact-finding report was issued in December – included a benefits cap of $12,500 annually for classified employees as well as a forfeit of three vacation days for the 2011-12 school year and four vacation days for the 2012-13 school year.
“We settled on something that we believe the district didn’t need to do,” said Luci Clark, a senior labor relations representative for the California School Employees Association, describing the classified staff as having their “hands tied” in the negotiation. “We are going to be really involved in the school board elections in 2012. The school board is letting the school administrators run away.”
At the heart of the disagreement between the bargaining unit and the school district is whether the schools have to maintain a projected balanced budget for the next three years. CSEA representative Clark said that she did not believe the schools have to do that any more. Superintendent Gary McIntire presented a letter from the San Benito County Office of Education, dated Jan. 12. that says the district is “required to prepare multi-year projections, certify status, and demonstrate they maintain the Reserve for Economic Uncertainties in the third year out.”
Before the agreement, the district’s projected reserve for the 2013-14 fiscal year came up $676,000 short. McIntire said with the agreement, he believed the reserve would be maintained.
McIntire explained that the school budget is always a moving target, and that has been especially true in recent years when state funding has been so uncertain. This year, the schools expected to receive a $250 cut per student for average daily attendance. Instead, at mid-year, they received a $12.50 per student cut and a transportation cut that would have cost HSD nearly $700,000. Legislatures eliminated that cut and instead took a cut out of the school’s general fund. The school district may still face an average daily attendance cut of $370 per student next year plus a loss of a cost of living adjustment because the state budget hinges on a slate of tax initiatives planned for the November ballot.
“You see a structural imbalance and that is what we are trying to correct,” McIntire said.
McIntire said that he has to plan the budget based on the worst-case scenario while still maintaining a state-required 3 percent reserve for economic uncertainties. CSEA’s Clark commented that the times presented to the district now are “economic uncertainties.” McIntire said that the reserve is to be used only for “catastrophic events.” He noted at a prior district where he worked that the school had a water pipe burst under it. The repairs cost $700,000. It is events like that for which the reserve is saved, McIntire said.
“Many districts try to maintain 8 to 10 percent reserves,” McIntire said.
Fact-finding panel
When state mediation did not work, the district and union moved on to a fact-finding panel, for which the district and union both select a party to represent them and those parties select a third-party neutral chairperson. Each side presented its case at a hearing on Oct. 27 and then had 30 days to come to an agreement. If no agreement is met, the neutral chair writes a report with suggestions on how the parties should proceed.
In this case, Bonnie Prouty Castrey, the neutral chair, wrote a report that was released in December that said the fact-finding process “has shown that substantial concessions spread over this year and next are crucial in order to remain solvent.” Castrey recommended against the quarter percent reduction in salary, but suggested that the bargaining unit accept the reduction in benefits – to the $10,600 cap for annual payment from the district.
In a meeting on Dec. 13 to review the report, the district concurred with the findings while the bargaining unit dissented.
Clark said that the employees did not agree with Castrey’s findings and that CSEA would not be working with her in the future based on the result of the Hollister negotiation and the negotiations in one other district.
Clark also argued that because the district had budgeted for a much larger cut from the state of $250 per student for average daily attendance at the middle of the school year, which turned out to be a cut of only $12.50 per student, the district should have extra money to cover some of the costs. She also said that the district had cut essential services in previous years, such as school librarians and computer lab staff, who are classified employees.
“When you are in the school improvement program one of the first things I would recommend is classified staff,” Clark said. “I would really like them to be open about bringing them back.”
Questions on expenditures
In explaining the bargaining unit’s position, Clark showed a few line items in the budget that had increased from the 2010-11 school year to 2011-12.
“If the district is in such financial dire straits, why would they increase consultants?” Clark asked, referring to the professional/consultant line item in the budget.
She showed that according to CSEA figures, the expenditures had increased from $2.4 million in 2008-09 to a projected $4 million in 2011-12.
When asked about those costs, McIntire said many of the expenditures are paid for with restricted funds, meaning that the district is required by law to provide the services and the funding can only be used for specific costs. McIntire said many of those expenditures include special education services that are mandated, such as transportation, occupational therapy or other resources that the district needs to hire consultants to deliver.
The amount from the general fund is about 25 percent of the budget for professional or consultant services, and that increased $30,000 from 2010-11 to 2011-12. One of the costs for the district this year was nearly $3,862 to Castrey for her services in the fact-finding panel. CSEA split the total cost of $7,724.93 with the district.
Another contention the classified union had is that the number of administrators on payroll for the district increased by 2.5 full-time employees from 2010-11 to 2011-12. McIntire explained that the district had 1.5 vacant positions at the beginning of the 2010-11 school year, and those were later filled. They included an English Learner coordinator and a half-time preschool coordinator. The EL coordinator is paid partly through Title 3 funding and the half-time preschool coordinator is required to maintain grant funding from the state. The district also promoted a teacher to a behavior specialist position to work with special education students, which will allow them to cancel the contracts they have with special education behavior specialists in the next fiscal year – a move expected to save the district money over the long term. The contracts were maintained this year to supervise the behavioral specialist as she completes the certification process.
McIntire presented a flow chart of the Hollister district office staff that showed which positions had been eliminated or had hours reduced from the 2007-08 school year to 2009-10. At least 10 positions at the district office were eliminated and four more had hours reduced.
Cecilia Rodriguez, the CSEA chapter president, said she has been working with the district for 35 years and she wants to work together with the district to come to a resolution of disagreements between the two sides.
“We are open to sharing ideas,” she said. “We are open to looking at ways to work together.”
Clark noted that of the 195 classified employees in the district, the average employee makes $25,000 and not one works a full 12 months.
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