15-B Insider - February 2003

BARGAINING 2003

In our last issue, we presented the K-12 fund balances for our districts. All but one of our K-12 districts are financially healthy, and the "one" is on the mend. For purposes of discussion, let us define "healthy" as a fund balance in excess of 15%. In this issue I would like to present the amount of money spent by our districts on interest to borrow money to operate (Interest Expense), and the amount of interest earned by each of our districts on their fund balances (Interest Revenue). Do you notice any trend? These are 2000-2001 figures, which are the most current ones that we had available.

School districts, except for charter schools, are "not-for-profit", and yet most of our districts have been turning profits. Using some of their fund balances will most likely be a reality for the 2003-2004 school year. Districts will need to be prudent; however, I suspect some will overcompensate for our State’s funding problems and still turn a profit during 2003-2004.

Unsettled: Evart ESP & Evart Transportation

Preparing to bargain for 2003: Cadillac EA, TAS of Cadillac, Evart EA, Manton EA and ESP, Marion EA and Bus Drivers, Pine River EA and ESP, and Wexford-Missaukee ISD ESP.

Feb. 19th 15-B Retirement Workshop – 6:30 p.m. – RSVP

Feb. 26^th MESSA Employee Benefit Bargaining Tune-up – Big Rapids - RSVP

March 4^th Bargaining Workshop – Chief Negotiators

March 11^th Coordinating Council Meeting – 7:07 p.m.

March 28-29 ESP Conference in Troy

 

Section 380.1527 of the Revised School Code requires that the board of each school district shall provide at least five days of professional development in the 2001-2002 school year and each school year after the 2001-2002 school year. A "day" is defined as the length of your regular school day. This Act took effect in 1996, and we are seeing a greater impact of Section 1527 in recent times. There hasn’t really been any real teeth in the enforcement process, but closer monitoring is becoming a reality. The last State Aid Act offered the opportunity to school districts to allow them to count up to five days of Section 1527 professional development time toward meeting the 1098 instructional hour requirement. A district still has to have 178 days (180 - 2 snow days) of school and still needs to provide 1086 instructional hours [(1098 -12 (for the 2 snow days, if your regular school day is six hours)]. This State Aid Act caveat does allow your district to count up to 30 hours of professional development time towards the 1086 instructional hour requirement, providing your regular school day is six hours. You may find yourself being asked by the State to itemize your professional development time, and part of this impetus might be a result of allowing districts to count this professional development time as part of the instructional hour requirement. Instructional time is audited, and thus the closer scrutiny of professional development time. Counting this time helps rural districts like us that have children boarding their buses early to still allow elementary children to have recess time. This recess time also allows some elementary teachers to get a short break and prepare for their next classroom session. Meeting the instructional hour time requirement seems to be most problematic in elementary schools. As we approach the bargaining process this year, take the time to evaluate your work time. And if your district makes a case for "we have no money", consider taking time in exchange for money. Perhaps you should request both. McBain was able to pare one student day of instruction off their calendar in their last round of bargaining. Join them if you need to and you can.

There are 380,000 of us, and we are NEA’s second largest ESP job group. On average we have been NEA members for 8.8 years, and 81% of us are represented by collective bargaining agreements. We expect to grow to 393,000 by 2010. Nine out of ten of us plan to stay in our jobs until we retire. On average we work 11 months per year, and 91% of us work full time. Sixty-eight percent of us have responsibility for school safety. We interact closely with parents and the public, often in situations of stress, conflict, or crisis. We enjoy our freedom to decide how to do our jobs and the personal fulfillment we get from our work. Ninety-six percent of us are female, 80% are married, and 34% have school-age children. Seventy-six percent of us live in the school districts that we work in. Our average age is 49.

We (Judy and I) have heard several comments lately that the new Governor we helped elect is now cutting K-12 school funding. The implication here has been that she is responsible for this problem. Whoa-there! From my perspective, this implication is way off base. Governor Granholm inherited this problem from our former governor and a Legislature who kept cutting the taxes that affect the State revenue which supports our schools. Is it also possible the economy is responsible? Forty-four percent of our State’s revenue is used to support our K-12 schools. Area property taxes do not generate huge amounts of money to fund our schools. So when we drop the personal income tax by .1%, we take approximately 110 million dollars out of State revenues. This amounts to about 48 million dollars of revenue to our K-12 school districts. So when Cadillac estimates that it just lost $300,000 in a cut or Evart estimates that it lost $106,000 in a cut, etc., it will affect you in your workplace and/or your pocket book. The bottom-line here is that these cuts may very well have a detrimental effect on the educational program in your district. Our Northern Zone lobbyist, Linda Myers, suggests that we call our State Representative and State Senator to request increasing revenues rather than making cuts in the budget. For example, they could put a pause on the current reduction in income tax, or put a pause on the single business tax, or allow tax payers to pay the full six mills of local property tax instead of rolling it back to five mills for this year. Please call or write your legislators and ask them to restore funding to our K-12 schools.

Copyright © MEA 15-B. All rights reserved.