Nearly 22 months in, on-going teacher contract negotiations in RSU 40 continue to stall. More than a year after the most recent contract expired, the negotiations are hinging mainly on compensation, according to involved parties.
The situation grew tense last spring with teachers initiating “work-to-rule,” where they strictly followed the requirements of their contracts, followed by a student sit-in protest in support of the teachers which ended with around 25 students suspended, and teachers opting not to march at Medomak Valley High School’s graduation as a protest.
Since that time, a fact finding panel from the Maine Labor Relations Board has issued a report with its recommendations on some of the major sticking points between Medomak Valley Educators Association, representing the teachers, and the RSU 40 Board of Director’s negotiating committee.
According to the report, issued July 29, the district board’s position on compensation was a 2.66 percent salary increase for 2012-2013, followed by a 2 percent increase in 2013-2014, both including any step raises for staff.
The district board’s proposal also included a “voluntary incentive” plan: if 66 percent of the teachers in a school agree to participate and there is a 10 percent increase in the number of students who have advanced by one level in the Continuous Improvement Priority System (a school performance measuring program), teachers would be paid $1000 each, according to the report.
The district board’s proposal also included smaller incentives for facilitating professional development and enrolling in an advanced degree program relevant to classroom instruction, among others.
The MVEA, according to the report, believes the district board’s proposal is merit pay, not an incentive program; a proposal which would be punitive rather than constructive and lead to reduced salaries overall.
If connecting pay to student performance is made, the MVEA believes it must be made through a three year program of developing a system for measuring improvement, planning for implementation, and finally executing it, according to the report.
The association argued that wages in RSU 40 are approximately $2100 to $4700 less (annually) than in surrounding districts, and in extreme cases range from $5800 to $7600 depending on graduate degrees and experience.
To correct the wage disparities, MVEA asked for a three year contract from 2012 to 2015, with a 3 percent wage increase annually and each teacher will move up one step per year, according to the report.
In its recommendations, the fact finding panel recommended adopting the “voluntary incentive” plan in a three year contract, including a 2.66 percent wage increase (including step increases) retroactively for 2012-2013, a 2.9 percent wage increase (including step increases) for 2013-2014, and a 0.5 percent increase and the implementation of the incentive program in 2014-2015.
The two parties have met three times since the MLRB report was issued on July 29; most recently on the morning of Oct. 7.
Representatives from both sides said traction has been gained on three of the four major issues in the MLRB report – health insurance offerings, contract term length, and extra curricular stipends – but wheels are still spinning on compensation.
“Of those four, the hang up at this point is on the compensation,” said Tod Brown, a district board member and a member of the negotiations committee, after the negotiations meeting on Oct. 7.
Paul Forest, president and chief negotiator for MVEA, agreed with Brown’s characterization of the situation. “Yes, it’s all salaries right now, that’s where we’re stuck. Everything else would just fall right into place if we could agree on that,” Forest said Oct. 7.
Brown said the position of the district is, if raises are going to be given, there ought to be some sort of correlation with student achievement.
“It’s a balance between how much money is on the salary schedule and how much would be in the form of an incentive,” he said.
Forest said the MVEA has made a “very good effort” in attempting to compromise, but disagrees with the district on implementing such a link between performance and pay.
The teachers would like to use a three year process to plan, pilot, and implement the performance-linked pay method before it becomes a part of their contract, while the district would like the teachers to sign on before any of the details have been worked out, Forest said.
Different grades use different tests, and it would need to be worked out what the pay increases would be based on which tests, he said.
The date for any future negotiations between the district and the association has not yet been set.
After the MVEA team’s proposal and the board committee’s counter offer at the Oct. 7 meeting failed to find common ground, Brown said his committee feels a final contract is farther away than they had originally thought.
“The last negotiating session [before Oct. 7], we had discussed a lot of possibilities, there had been movement on both sides, and we thought on that basis that we might be able to come up with a settlement, but that apparently turned out not to be the case this morning,” Brown said.
“We were hopeful going in to this morning; we’re not as hopeful now,” he said.
