 |
|
|
||
|
By Steve Gunn We at the Education Action Group believe that Indiana's collective bargaining laws are stacked against local school boards and students, and end up costing taxpayers millions of dollars per year. The Indiana State Teachers Association is granted considerable leverage at the bargaining table because teachers' contracts that expire remain in force until a new one is settled. There is no incentive for union negotiators to accept anything less than what they want. And the ISTA definitely doesn't want to make any concessions in salary or benefits, despite the fact that most of Indiana's public schools are in dire financial straits. Other employees in many school districts, including administrators and support staff, have accepted concessions to help their employers survive the crisis. But the teachers union won't budge, and state law says it doesn't have to. The ISTA doesn't have to consider the consequences of its stubbornness - cuts in student programs, layoffs of younger teachers and increases in class sizes. It's free to delay the negotiating process to maintain the status quo, and that's exactly what it's doing. We're aware of at least two Indiana school districts that are heading into mediation with the teachers union after a summer of fruitless negotiations. At Noblesville schools, annual salary raises automatically awarded to teachers have been the sticking point in negotiations with the ISTA. The district is working to cut $3.9 million from its budget this year because of decreased state funding. Administrators and other staff agreed to a pay freeze, but teachers union officials want to maintain the automatic raises, Noblesville Superintendent Libbie Morgan-Conner told the Hoosier Report Card, our weekly statewide newsletter. Those annual raises range between 2.3 percent and 9.8 percent of salaries, an annual increase of about $525,000 for the school. The district can't afford that type of spending increase at the moment. And if the regular increases are granted, the school will not be able to take advantage of a new state law that allows districts to transfer up to 5 percent of capital improvement funds into the general fund, to make ends meet. That law is only triggered if school employees agree to accept raises of 2 percent or less, and the ISTA won't settle for that. It's déjÀ vu in the Tippecanoe school district. The ISTA declared an impasse after four months of negotiations that went nowhere. The bottom line: the ISTA refuses to consider salary concessions similar to those that all other school employees have accepted without a no-layoff guarantee for three years. With school funding in such a precarious state, that's a guarantee that the district can't offer, according to Superintendent Scott Hanback. Tippecanoe administrators have accepted a 3 percent pay cut and gave up performance-based bonuses. They also agreed to roll back the school board's contribution to their health coverage to 2008-09 levels, saving the school $470,000. Tippecanoe's custodians, bus drivers and secretaries followed suit, collectively sacrificing more than $1 million to keep the school system afloat. The teachers union clearly has no plan to do the same. In both school districts, ISTA's stubbornness has resulted in increased class sizes, fewer student programs and fewer teaching positions. That fact has forced many school leaders and taxpayers to question the union's priorities. We believe the situations in Noblesville and Tippecanoe, and probably many other districts, are being manipulated by ISTA bosses in Indianapolis who are determined to apply the maximum leverage at the bargaining table, with little regard for economic conditions or the needs of Hoosier students. Teachers unions are known for saying that they "put kids first." The ISTA's behavior at the bargaining table is clear evidence to the contrary. |
||||
|
|
||||