{"id":1392,"date":"2011-01-19T10:36:21","date_gmt":"2011-01-19T15:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unionvilletimes.com\/?p=1392"},"modified":"2011-01-19T10:40:22","modified_gmt":"2011-01-19T15:40:22","slug":"district-teachers-union-make-case-for-contract-proposals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=1392","title":{"rendered":"District, teachers union make case for contract proposals"},"content":{"rendered":"

One director suggests current teacher proposal could lead to layoffs while union says it’s unfair for teachers to be blamed for HS renovation costs<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Unionville school board finance chair Keith Knauss presents his take on the implications of the teacher contract talks, Tuesday night.<\/p><\/div>\n

PENNSBURY \u2014 In the end, it will come down to numbers.<\/p>\n

When representatives of the Unionville-Chads Ford School District and its teachers make the case for their respective offers to a state mediator at a non-binding arbitration hearing, Wednesday, both sides will be looking to show why their numbers add up for students and taxpayers. Mariann E. Schick was appointed by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board to hear both sides and offer a non-binding compromise by the end of the month.<\/p>\n

Both sides offered a bit of a preview of what they expect to highlight during Tuesday night\u2019s Board of Education meeting at Chadds Ford Elementary School, with one school board member suggesting that accepting the teachers\u2019 current proposal could lead to the layoff of 30 or more teachers in the next three years, while the teachers counter that they\u2019ve agreed to concessions on health care costs and shouldn\u2019t be punished for the financial repercussions of funding the high school renovations within normal budget lines after it was rejected by voters twice.<\/p>\n

Both sides acknowledge that it\u2019s a difficult problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a situation where one side is rolling in cash,\u201d said board Vice chair Frank Murphy, part of the board\u2019s negotiating team. Murphy said the board was trying to take into account interests of everyone in the community, \u201cthe whole ball of wax.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the poor weather kept the crowd in attendance down, board members still heard residents and students express the full range of frustration with the progress of the talks. Michael Walter-Dillion, a third-grader at Chadds Ford Elementary, said he and his fellow students were \u201csad, worried, scared and a little mad\u201d at how the negotiations have gone and suggested that the adults were not setting a good example for students. The student said he was also worried about the outsourcing discussions for bus drivers, food workers, and custodial and landscaping staff and the idea of bringing \u201cstrangers\u201d into his school.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Harry Miller of Birmingham, a long-time critic of district spending, called on the district to match Chester County and have no tax increase.<\/p>\n

Murphy suggested that the board needed to split the fine line between frugal and penny-wise and pound foolish.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur job is not to run the cheapest school district we can,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cOur job is to run the most cost-effective school district.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keith Knauss, the board\u2019s finance chair, gave a presentation \u2014 which he clearly identified as coming from himself, and not necessarily representing the views of the rest of the board of education \u2014 that painted a dire financial picture. Knauss ran through numbers that suggested that even with a 3.3% tax increase, the maximum tax increase allowed under the state\u2019s Act 1 limit without a voter referendum, the district would only net an increase in revenue of 1.44%, in part because of drops in property valuation, lower collection rates and loss of other revenues to the district. He said the teachers\u2019 proposal required an additional 3% in salary spending and an additional 2% in benefits. With salaries and benefits making up some 72% of the district\u2019s spending and teacher salaries and benefits making up about 46% of total expenses, Knauss said, it would be virtually impossible to cut elsewhere \u2014 bond interest and special education spending cannot be cut under state law, so there\u2019s not a lot of room elsewhere for cuts. Knauss listed seven options, ranging from staff cuts, to a referendum for higher taxes, but said he, and he felt, the rest of board, preferred to reach a settlement with the teachers union.<\/p>\n

Still, Knauss said that teachers would have to be willing to work with the board, as the administration and support personnel have, and keep salary increases down if they want to reach a deal.<\/p>\n

Pat Clark, president of the Unionville-Chadds Ford Education Association, the teachers\u2019 union, said during the meeting that he and his colleagues also prefer to reach a negotiated settlement, but noted that it was unfair to dump all of the current financial difficulties at the feet of the teachers \u2014 and fairness required \u201ca year\u2019s credit be given for a year\u2019s work.\u201d Clark argued that under the teachers\u2019 proposal, less than 2% is being added to the salary matrix, while the union has made concessions on health care costs and agreed to work a longer day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe we have answered the call for shared sacrifices,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The district and its teachers have been working for more than year to reach a new contract without success \u2014 the previous contract expired in June. The gap between the two sides hasn\u2019t changed dramatically as the talks have progressed, leading to some frustration expressed by parents and students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One director suggests current teacher proposal could lead to layoffs while union says it’s unfair for teachers to be blamed for HS renovation costs By Mike McGann, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com PENNSBURY \u2014 In the end, it will come down to numbers. When representatives of the Unionville-Chads Ford School District and its teachers make the case for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,16],"tags":[44,43,70,42,24],"class_list":["post-1392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","category-schools","tag-school-board","tag-schools-2","tag-taxes","tag-teachers-contract","tag-unionville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}