After 15 months of negotiations and a rewritten contract,
teachers and the Aromas-San Juan Unified School District are on the
verge of agreeing to a contract.
For 15 months, 83 teachers have been working without a contract
with the district.
After 15 months of negotiations and a rewritten contract, teachers and the Aromas-San Juan Unified School District are on the verge of agreeing to a contract.
For 15 months, 83 teachers have been working without a contract with the district.
The contract for certificated staff expired June 30, 2002, and after re-writing most of the contract, negotiations have stalled between the teachers union and district. The pressing issues are salary and health benefits.
The district is not the only one negotiating since July 2002 – Watsonville’s Pajaro Valley Unified School District and its teachers just settled and the Gilroy Unified School District and its teachers are still talking.
Other districts in the county, like the Hollister School District and the San Benito High School District, have just begun negotiations with teachers since those contracts expired this June. Contracts are for three years.
The ASJUSD, caught between a rock and a hard place, has to balance budget cuts, declining enrollment and double-digit increases in health benefits with the desire to pay teachers more and make salary competitive to other schools in the area.
Teachers are dealing with negotiations and the stress of working without a contract.
While rumors of a strike spread throughout the community, teachers union president Barbara Brown said the union is far away from that point.
“At one time, this district was the highest paid in the area. Now, it’s one of the lowest,” said Brown, a teacher at Aromas School.
According to numbers based on contracts for 2001-02, teachers within the ASJUSD could earn between $36,605 and $67,753 a year not counting benefits, compared to an average of $39,051 to $71,906 in other area districts.
The ASJUSD would have to give the teachers a 12-percent pay raise to bring salaries to the middle, Brown contends. The teachers union is requesting a 3.56-percent increase for the 2002-03 school year.
“We know the district doesn’t have the funds to bring us back to the top, but we’re trying to get to the middle,” Brown said. “We’re slowly trying to move back up.”
Low teacher salaries can make it hard to recruit and retain teachers, especially highly qualified teachers.
Teacher salaries and benefits comprise around 80 percent of any given district’s budget. In 2000, teachers did receive a 10-percent raise and another raise in 2001-02, said District Superintendent Jackie Munoz.
Munoz, a former teacher herself, agrees that salaries are low and wants to be able to give raises.
“I agree with the assessment that the salary for teachers needs to be brought up at par with surrounding districts,” Munoz said. “When the economy drops, we’re a struggling district. Up until last year, we were deficit spending. Teachers work hard. They should be compensated.”
The union justifies asking for a raise because the district has a history of overestimating expenditures and has carryover every year – more than the mandated 3 percent. Munoz argued that the carryover is used to cover deficit spending and help carry the district for the next fiscal year. The district deficit spent in 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2002.
The district countered with a raise, but not as high as the union’s 3.56-percent request. Munoz would not specify what the counter offer was.
The union and district have been negotiating over salary since January and has had four meetings with a neutral mediator – the latest Oct. 7. Six teachers make up the union negotiating team and Munoz, the district’s lawyer and a Board member, negotiate for the district.
After the latest mediated meeting, Munoz called a special Board meeting Oct. 10 to ask the Trustees for direction. They approved a new proposal to the union upping the district’s original salary proposal, but Munoz would not specify further.
If the mediator doesn’t see any progress, they can recommend fact-finding, where a neutral party comes in and looks at the district’s books and a person from each side argues their points. The fact finder makes a recommendation, that the ASJUSD Board of Trustees can accept or deny. The district will then present a final offer and the union accepts or rejects it. This is the point at which unions go on strike.
“We’re a long way from striking,” Brown said. “That’s after we’ve exhausted all other avenues. We can’t even go there until we’ve gone through the whole entire process. There haven’t been any discussions or decisions. It’s too soon yet.”
The fact-finding would cost the district $16,000, Munoz said. And, since school districts across the state are at impasse, the earliest a fact finder could come to the district would be March 2004, Munoz said.
The union thinks the impasse is ready for fact-finding if the current possible settlement is not reached. If the case goes to fact-finding, Brown is certain the union’s arguments will come out on top.
“The numbers back us up. We’re using their numbers, their reports, their budgets,” Brown said.
It’s a matter of principle. Teachers at the ASJUSD do not feel the district values them or their work. The seeds of this resentment come from how the district’s budget is developed each year. Usually, allotments for salaries and benefits are done last, Brown said.
“We get the crumbs. We get what’s left over,” she said. “It’s a matter of making it a priority in the budget.”
Munoz said teacher salaries and benefits have been a low priority in the past. The district has a new business manager and “a superintendent who is dedicated to moving salaries up,” she said.
The district and its business manager will look at each of the budget’s categories to see if funding can be re-allocated.
So far, negotiations have been disappointing for both sides.
“I wouldn’t say disappointing. It’s anger. The more nothing happens, the angrier teachers are getting,” Brown said. “It’s disheartening. We’re at the front of it.”
Working together without a contract fosters bad morale.
“I’m extremely disturbed about the fact that we haven’t settled. It causes morale problems and trust issues,” Munoz said. “It filters down into the classroom, so it affects the children.”
