Negotiations stall for teachers' pay raise
District, union agree to sit down with mediator
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

Contract negotiations between the Pleasant Valley Education Association and Pleasant Valley School District are at an impasse.

The school district and the 360-member teachers' union remain far apart on salary and benefits. The union is asking for a 6 percent raise in salary and an additional $3,500 a year for benefits, a 10 percent raise in all. The district said 4 percent is all it can afford for both salary and benefits.

Both sides came away from their last meeting on Dec. 7 agreeing to meet with a mediator, possibly sometime in January.

Union President Suzann Zeigler said the district came to the negotiating table with a take-it-or-leave it attitude and wouldn't discuss pay and benefits separately from unrelated matters, such as union communication and class sizes.

"They were not wanting to negotiate," Zeigler said.

For example, the district wants the union to stop placing fliers in teachers' mailboxes and to allow principals to direct teachers' preparation time, she said.

Zeigler said the district also wants to increase class sizes for sixthgraders, an attempt to manipulate teachers at Los Primeros School to agree to a six-period schedule instead of seven periods like other middle schools.

"I know it's a way to force teachers to do it," Zeigler said.

On the contrary, Superintendent Luis Villegas said the provision is a way for the district to cut staffing costs, a significant expense. If the district can add a couple of students to each sixth-grade class, it can cut two teaching positions, he said.

The union has suggested that the district can offer a better compensation package by trimming 15 percent from school programs without affecting the overall program quality or classroom instruction.

Villegas said cutting 15 percent out of any budget would be noticed. "How can that not impact people?" he said. "What costs us money are salaries and benefits."

Employee salary and benefits account for 89 percent of the district's budget, Gary Mortimer, acting assistant superintendent of fiscal services, told the school board last week. Villegas said he knows of districts that exceed that figure, but he advises against it. Between 83 percent and 85 percent would be ideal, he said.

The school board has been criticized for not fulfilling its promise to improve teachers' pay and benefits package after closing two schools earlier this year specifically for that purpose.

Villegas said the closures did make a difference in what the district is able to offer teachers. "Two percent of what's on the table right now is exactly what the savings were that (closing) the schools generated," he said.

School officials have said the closures saved the district about $700,000.

Villegas said the wrangling between the district and union over salary and benefits is being repeated across the state as school districts brace themselves for cutbacks. State officials said recently they expect a $14-billion shortfall.

Mortimer told the board that the district's budget could dip by nearly $4 million next school year. He also said the district is expected to lose more than 200 students by the year 2013.