Teachers seek mediator to settle pay raise issue
The Warren County Education Association has formally requested federal mediation for its 2006-2007 contract negotiations with the Warren County School Board.
The WCEA presented a letter announcing its decision at a Monday meeting of the Negotiations Committee. The move came after a series of meetings in which both sides presented a number of proposals and counter-proposals, but could come to no agreement on three major issues: salary, teacher drug testing and teacher supplements.
When the school board dismissed the teachers? most recent salary counter-proposal, which would have required an additional $59,000 to fund, money that school board Negotiations Committee chairman Mike Holland says is not in the budget, WCEA officials expressed their concern about the progress of contract talks and presented the letter announcing their request for federal mediation.
WCEA member Nancy McNeal, who has been sitting in for WCEA president Sheila Gann who has been out due to health problems, explained the reason for the WCEA?s stance.
?We feel it would probably be fruitless to continue offering counter-proposals,? McNeal said. ?With all this in mind, it appears that in order to settle this round of negotiations, we believe the time is appropriate to request the assistance of a federal mediator.?
?Well, from our side of it, we don?t see we?re at that point,? Holland replied.
By far the No. 1 area of contention has been teacher salaries, with the main issue being an $840,000 raise package designed to bring Warren County teachers more in line with state averages. In a year when county commissioners were struggling to pass a budget with no property tax increase, they actually voted to fund $390,000 of that package by utilizing capital outlay notes to fund other school projects, thus freeing up money from the school budget to fund the balance of the raises.
In a meeting of the Education Committee held directly after the Negotiations Committee meeting, some commissioners voiced their disappointment upon hearing the WCEA had requested mediation and seemed reluctant to accept the raise package as presented by the school board.
?Do they want the raise or not?? asked Commissioner Carl Bouldin. ?We commissioners went out on a limb for the teachers to vote that money for the raises. I?ll tell you one thing, if I was voting on it right now, I wouldn?t vote to give them a dime.?
The school board has been working for some time on a raise package designed to increase the lower end of the salary range to bring it more in line with state averages. Warren County is currently 132 out of 136 school districts in Tennessee in starting salary for teachers.
The school board?s plan would have used local funds, along with a 2 percent state funded raise, to provide a $2,500 pay raise for bachelor?s-degree level teachers, and $2,000 for master?s-degree level teachers. But with this package, the approximately 61 teachers with a master?s degree plus 30, EDS and doctorate degrees would receive only the 2 percent state raise, something the WCEA has maintained is unfair to a group of teachers who have spent a considerable amount of time and expense to further their education.
The WCEA has been adamant in its refusal to leave these teachers out of the raise package, presenting several counter-proposals in an effort to include them, including taking $500 from the $2,500 raise for BA teachers and distributing it to the higher level teachers, and revamping the entire pay schedule for teachers in Warren county in an effort to distribute the money more evenly.
Mediation is not binding for either party, and is simply a method to overcome a stalemate between the negotiating parties.
?We haven?t requested mediation,? Holland said after the meeting. ?We are still willing to negotiate. I?m really surprised it has come to this point.?