Another area of public school governance which is incredibly confusing and counterintuitive is the collective bargaining process. I originally posted in February that the District and the teachers’ union (SCTA) has reached “impasse.” Since then, I have written muliple posts regarding our financial crisis. The bottom line is that there is no way to balance our budget without reducing compensation expenses. As the SCTA would not agree to these cuts as part of the contract negotiations, we went into a state-mandated processed called Impasse. The first step of this process was mediation with a state-appointed mediator trying to bring both parties together. This mediation ended in the same place it started, with the bargaining unit not agreeing to compensation reductions. The next step was “Fact Finding”, where another state-appointed representative leads a panel to hear both sides and issue a non-binding ruling.
Now, five months after we started, we are back to the same position the District has held the entire time. The Fact Finding panel has ruled almost exactly consistent with the District’s original position — that the SCSD indeed needs to make these cuts to keep the District financially viable, and that the SCTA should accept a series of concessions including across-the-board salary cuts and increased class sizes. You can read a letter from the District, an FAQ, and the actual Fact Finder report on the District web site. The Fact Finder panel also reiterated what the Board has stated publicly, which is if, in September, the financial outlook is better than forecasted, we could reduce some of these cuts.
I believe the District has been extremely consistent and fair in its position the entire time, and I am glad the independent appointees and reports all concur with the District’s position. The next step is that the District will try one final time to reach agreement with the SCTA, and if it can not, it is allowed to implement its last offer (or something similar, but not more than is in that offer). In any case, hopefully the process will be over soon.
As I’ve said multiple times, it’s of course terrible to lay off employees or to reduce employees’ compensation, but given the terrible financial circumstances it is certainly the “least worst” option and in fact much less impactful than the actions that are happening in other school districts up and down the state.
