Who Are You Bargaining For?

The question of the day is: WHY is the SPEA Negotiating Team dragging out negotiations for 2012-13 (Hello!  We're beyond the midway point!  Time to start working for 2013-14!!!)

The school board offered a very fair package which addresses what SPEA (and WEAC) have declared to be a primary mission: raising the starting wage for teachers.  But that's not good enough.  You see, in order to do that with the pot of money available, a significant portion must be earmarked for those teachers with 1-6 years of experience.  That means that a small amount would be available to more tenured teachers, most in the form of a stipend (as opposed to a base salary builder).

It's called compromise, people!   You are getting to do some serious good for starting teachers.  But you're not willing to accept that because this plan calls for either a small token stipend (or perhaps nothing) for those teachers that already earn like...say...$86,000 in base salary. REALLY?  Is THAT what unions are all about?

Here's a novel idea.
If the union is really... well....unified...
...and union members really feel strongly but raising the base wage...
If they are that unhappy with a stipend amount of $460 each, why don't they all agree to donate those stipends to further increase the base wage?   As it is, the board proposal still means a base wage that is no more than par with the average paid throughout Dane Co. districts.
If even HALF of the stipend amount going to the upper 2/3 was used to further increase the base wage of those on the bottom rung, we could have a very competitive base wage.
What? sacrifice $500 to help your fellow teachers just starting out?  Fat chance!


What does a 2% across the board pay increase look like?
Let's take a look at that 2% increase and how it would play out the way SPEA wants it to.  Now, the best way to do that is to use that great salary matrix(for 2011-12 ending June 2012) put together by the District Office.  Yes...we'll state it up front...some of those upper end teachers (and some throughout the list) have either retired or moved on.  But we need a model to work with and this is what we have.
We also culled the list; we sorted it by base salary and excluded all individuals earning below $32,505, which is the base wage for a starting teacher.

What we are let with was a list of 552 staff members.
The total base salary of these folks was $26,971,406.
Th school board has budgeted for 2% of that amount for wage increases.
2% comes to $539,428.

Now...from the top of that amount, we have to pay those that earned a step or lane change.  The rest would be available for across the board (or whatever) wage increases.  For our purposes here,however, let's just assume there were no lane/step payments.  Let's just spread that $539 K evenly across the board at 2% increase per person.  And let's split the 552 employees into three groups, those earning the top, the bottom, and the mid-range base salaries.

And here's what happens....

Why should the upper 184 teachers glom onto 42.8% of the available wage increase pool?

Is SPEA suggesting that by virtue of tenure, those teachers at the top deserve a larger share of the pool?  Because while a 2% "across the board" wage increase sounds equitable, clearly it is not.

Remember...we only simplified this.  In actuality, after paying for those due an increase for lane or step movement (hopefully for the last time), we can only raise the base wage for teachers with less than 7 years tenure to $35,000.  That will leave approximately $460 for each of the remaining staff members paid as a stipend rather than a basebuilder.

For actual details of the standing school board offer:
http://sp-eye.blogspot.com/2012/11/spasd-offers-contract-proposal-to.html

Henny Penny Declares: "The SPEA is Stalling!"

For a group that was squawking that the school board and district administration refused to come to the table to bargain, it sure seems like the shoe is now squarely on the other foot.

We've checked and the two sentence, 44 word "offer" reported previously is the only offer made by SPEA despite several "negotiation" meetings.

What's up with that?

Are they hanging their slim hopes on a Dane County judge?
Delaying till after January...when larger payments to retirement are required?
Hoping to vote out current members of the school board and replacing them with a "teacher friendly" board?
Do they really think this inaction is endearing them with the board?

We don't get it, frankly.  For a hyper-educated group that desperately wants to be viewed as  "professional educators", we're not seeing a lot of professionalism.

On the other hand, we have to take a moment and applaud the Local 60 folks.  This year, the historical red-headed stepchild of employee groups showed themselves to be a much more grateful and reasonable group to work with.  Sure they would have liked a 3.1% wage hike...but they were happy to take what they received.  They were patient and now are reaping the benefits.

That's something we can respect.  And something with which the board can work.

School Board Puts Cart Squarely Before the Horse

"Negotiating" raises before we know how much revenue we have a
and other expenses....um...as in a budget....makes absolutely no sense.
THAT is putting the cart before the horse. 

On Monday June 25, 2012, the School Board will be going into closed session to "develop negotiations parameters" with SPEA and Local 60.   We have a teensy weensy couple of issues with that.

First--and foremost-- why on earth would the Board be discussing raises before the Board has seen even a peek at the budget? (Raises, of course, is what "negotiations parameters" means, since under Act 10, the only thing which CAN be negotiated is wage increases)

In fact, since we won't know how much state aid we'll be receiving until July 1, the board will be discussing raises before they even know what revenues will be!  Of course, we know the board hasn't seen a budget yet, because the public hasn't seen a budget yet, and if the board has seen/discussed a budget without disclosing it to the public that wouldn't be very transparent, now would it?

Also there might be a teensy tiny error in the agenda since it talks about the PLURAL parameterS...and remember, under Act 10, the only thing negotiable is wage increases.

Taking advantage of overwhelmed new(er) school board members
We have two new school board members (one REALLY new and one relatively new), and this is just the kind of thing the administration likes to do with rookies.  Oftentimes, rookies don't know enough to (or know that they CAN) speak up and say, "STOP!".  The district counts on new members being overwhelmed and just calms them by saying, "we do this all the time".  It doesn't make it less wrong.  It just allows them to get away with it.  These two "rookies" represent one-half of a majority needed to take any action.

What is the all-fire rush, school board?  What would be so wrong about spending like 2 minutes in closed session Monday night? Just long enough to say, "Hey....until we see a budget that accounts fully for revenues and expenses, we are not even going to discuss raises.  Move to adjourn."

Just laying it on the taxpayers.
Unlike a small business that depends solely on revenues on which to base its budget, the district has no problem discussing raises now.  Why? Because if it isn't covered within state aids, they can always tack it on to the tax levy...right?

What does 2% raise mean?
Phil Frei has communicated that he used a "placeholder" of  2% for the 2012-13 budget.  What he doesn't tell you is what dollar amount that translates to.  Just teachers, admin, and Local 60 (not counting Special Ed costs) cost over $32 MILLION dollars.  2% of that figure translates to $640,000, which, in budget terms, means a levy increase of about 1.3%.  Hmmm....that makes things rough if you are trying to keep the tax levy increase under 2.5%, now doesn't it?  Looks like we may have just figured out why Culver and Frei initiated the top secret 10% cut for all department budgets.  Can you imagine a little conversation that went something like, "You guys can have either a full budget or a 10% budget cut and a 2% raise...which would you prefer?"

Shame on you, school board, if you do not immediately vote to table this discussion until the community (and YOU) have seen a budget.

Agenda Item Details

June 25, 2012 - REGULAR SCHOOL BOARD MEETING (Revised), 7:30 p.m. at the Municipal Building, 300 E. Main St., Sun Prairie. President: Tom Weber

  Closed Session

Subject: Go into closed session for the purpose of taking action on closed session minutes of April 23, May 2 (2 sets), and May 3 (3 sets), 2012; and developing negotiations parameters with the SPEA and Local 60 [Wis. Stats. 19.85(1)(c) & (e)].

Type: Action

10. Closed Session

10.01 Go into closed session for the purpose of taking action on closed session minutes of April 23, May 2 (2 sets), and May 3 (3 sets), 2012; and developing negotiations parameters with the SPEA and Local 60 [Wis. Stats. 19.85(1)(c) & (e)].

Here's One you HAVE To See!

Ok...we all get barraged with YouTube videos...right?
THIS one you need to watch.  It is WELL worth the time
Here's a guy from whom our school board could take a few lessons.


This is also a prime example of why past boards have been reluctant to give citizens more than 3 minutes at the microphone.  (We do appreciate that the current board seems to have ditched the infamous buzzer).  It is virtually impossible to make a strong cohesive statement which includes all the facts when under the gun.  But they know that.  They definitely do NOT want a guy like this to speak to them...or to the public.


Here's a straight shooter that's not afraid to tell it like it is.


This comes to us from a frequent reader, who says:

"Rather refreshing to see someone that will stand up to the teachers:
If only our school board president (or any member) could actually [graphic imagery censored]"