Talk from the Tacoma School District and the union that represents its teachers heated up Wednesday, after the school district broadcast an electronic message to the community.
The message from Superintendent Art Jarvis spoke of a “frustrating week” of labor negotiations that has seen little progress. Jarvis criticized the union for asking for a pay raise for its members in tough economic times.
In response Andy Coons, president of the Tacoma Education Association, said the union asked for a raise but only after the district asked the union to take a pay cut.
He said the pay raise proposal was part of the back-and-forth that happens during negotiations. “It’s bargaining,” Coons said.
The money talk isn’t the top issue, he said.
Rather, he said, his membership – which includes about 2,100 teachers, librarians, therapists, school nurses, counselors, office professionals and technology experts – is more concerned about the school district’s plan to increase class size.
“Teachers need to be able to give students individualized attention,” he said. “They are trying to impose a ‘one size fits all’ approach.”
But teachers want to be paid, he said, and the district should pay enough to “attract good teachers and keep them.” He said too many of the district’s proposed cutbacks are aimed at individual schools and teachers instead of at the school system as a whole.
Coons said the school district is “sitting on a $45 million surplus.” The union wants the district to use some of its surplus funds to offset a loss in state funding for teacher salaries.
That’s happened already in some surrounding school districts. Other districts have asked teachers to sacrifice pay, but work fewer extra days outside the classroom.
District officials say Tacoma Public Schools will enter the school year with an estimated fund balance of $39 million. It plans to spend nearly $15.4 million of that in the coming school year to avoid further cuts. It also plans to spend $7.6 million from the fund balance in the 2012-13 school year to avoid more cuts. Tacoma, like school districts around the state, had to absorb mid-year state funding cuts during the 2010-11 school year.
The Legislature has cut funds for keeping class size small. It also reduced funding for teacher pay by 1.9 percent and for other school employees by 3 percent.
This spring, the school board agreed – despite public protests – to close two elementary schools to save a little over $1 million.
Jarvis said in his Wednesday message that the district cut $11.2 million from the budget by eliminating about 100 positions, shuttering some programs and making cuts in administration.
Jarvis also noted that the district has been building its reserves in anticipation of tough budget times. He said the union knows the district did so to offset shortfalls over the next three years and to “preserve jobs and our investments in innovative programs.”
“Now the union leadership wants to draw down our reserves for increased salaries for their members, thereby creating a bow-wave of higher, unfunded costs in each succeeding year,” Jarvis wrote.
He said union proposals could add “at least $5.8 million per year in unfunded costs” for the district.
Coons said the school district also has proposed what he termed “micro-management” of what teachers teach.
“Our members are the ones in the classroom,” he said, adding they want the freedom to use whatever techniques and materials will help their students learn.
Coons said both sides have been bargaining late into the evening in an attempt to come up with a contract before the current one expires Aug. 31.
Union members plan to meet Monday for a progress report. Coons said he would love to have a proposed contract in his hand.
But if there is no agreement, union members will have to choose their next steps.
The union’s bylaws require 80 percent approval for a strike authorization vote. The union also could agree to continue working under the expired contract while bargaining continues.
Debbie Cafazzo: 253-597-8635 debbie.cafazzo@thenewstribune.com
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