Teachers want more money, better benefits despite state and
district budget woes
Teachers in the Morgan Hill District are going back to the negotiating table, just weeks after the school board unanimously approved a negotiated contract between the district and the Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers.
At the Dec. 15 school board meeting, Federation President Donna Foster presented the union’s proposal for a new contract.
“There are three central issues facing the district: revenues, respect and results,” Foster told trustees. “Not one of these is less important or less difficult to solve than the other.”
Assistant Superintendent Denise Tate, who heads the human resources department for the district, said these issues are also important to the district.
“We as a board and as an administration representing the board are interested in the revenue stream; we as administrators are interested in being respected at public meetings and in our private interactions; we, too, are interested in results,” she said Monday.
At the same meeting, the school district “sunshined” its initial bargaining proposal to the Service Employees International Union, Local 715, or SEIU, which serves classified employees.
According to the district proposal, a three-year contract for 2003-2004 through the 2005-2006 school year, is sought. Areas of interest include wages, health and welfare, job assignment and employee evaluation.
Compensation is an important issue for both the SEIU and the Federation.
While acknowledging the difficult financial position of the district and the state budget deficit, Foster said money must be found for teachers.
“Less than 10 years ago, the Morgan Hill School District teachers were at the median in wages for districts in Santa Clara County,” she said. “We are now dead last and losing ground. If you include the abysmal health and welfare allocation, teachers are actually taking a pay cut when the deduction for their families’ medical coverage is calculated …
“If we wish to attract and retain the excellent teaching staff we currently have we must reverse this pattern.”
Compensation, health care benefits, hours of employment, retirement options, educational issues, transfer and reassignment and the federal “No Child Left Behind” act top the list of negotiating issues for the teachers’ union.
“The federation’s proposal add-resses aspects of each article in the current contract,” said Tate. “(The federation) has a very well-in-formed negotiating team.”
The current contract between the Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers and the Morgan Hill School District that was ratified by teachers in a 154-13 vote Oct. 29 was unanimously approved by trustees during their Nov. 17 meeting.
The contract, the third year of the negotiated agreement 2000-2003, did not include a pay increase, a cost of living (COLA) increase or a change in health benefits.
The three major issues of the contract negotiations were teacher transfers, the employee work year and mileage.
Foster said the day after the board approved the current contract, she began preparing this proposal. Part of her preparations included researching pay and health benefits for teachers in surrounding school districts and the contracts of area superintendents. She and other union members compared them to the contract of Morgan Hill School District Superintendent Carolyn McKennan.
Foster said the climate for negotiations is good.
“Locally, we are working very cooperatively,” she said. “We are doing mutual research into the budget; we can’t actually start negotiations until February when everything’s been sunshined. We’re going line by line through budget so we can all understand what money there is. We know we’re in for a very difficult year because resources are so scarce.”
The district’s negotiations team, Foster said, is “very professional and cooperative,” and the two teams work together well.
On a state level, Foster said, prospects do not look so good.
“I am extremely concerned about encroachment on Prop 98,” she said. “I’m very concerned about the state mandates that say, ‘Do it and we’ll send you the money later.’”
Foster said she would be attending meetings Monday and Tuesday with legislative analysts to decipher the state budget proposal that Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger presents today.
“We are so tight here now, I really don’t know where we’re going to turn for the next set of cuts if state funding for schools is cut,” she said. “We need to make future spending for the teachers a priority. First we set aside wages, then we look at anything extra. And that can happen in a cooperative environment.”
A beginning credentialed Morgan Hill School District teacher earns $37,740, while a teacher with 10 years’ experience plus 60 units after a bachelor’s degree earns $58,099. At the top end of the scale a teacher with 30 years plus 75 units earns $71,400.
“Though we may disagree on issues, the members of their team are fine individuals who do look for solutions,” Tate said.
“The federation’s team is certainly one of the finest that I have ever negotiated with from the aspect of really researching the situation, possible solutions and wanting the best for the district. I think that the management representatives and the teach representatives by and large work very well together to look for reasonable solutions.”
