Focus shifts to labor talks

At Wednesday’s Eugene School Board meeting, at which members voted unanimously for all of Superintendent George Russell’s $24 million cost-saving recommendations, chairman Craig Smith wanted to make it clear that the board was really only making decisions on things within its control: laying off staff, closing schools and using up to $5 million in reserves for the 2011-12 school year.

On those matters, the board can make unilateral decisions.

Russell’s other recommendations, especially saving $5.5 million to $10 million in costs by continuing and increasing employee unpaid furloughs on school/work days, and freezing or reducing pay and benefits for employees, will have to be negotiated with union-represented work groups before the end of the fiscal year on June 30 to have any impact next school year.

The bottom line: Nearly half of the hoped-for cost savings in the board’s plan depends on employees agreeing to them. And if employees reject them, the board will have little choice but to go back to the areas it controls — layoffs, school closures and cash reserves — in order to come up with a balanced budget.

The board voted to close four elementary schools at the end of the school year, cut administrative and classified staff by 10 percent, and lay off 55 to 84 teachers, among other things. It also voted to combine the “fewer school/work days” and “compensation/benefits” recommendations into one category, from which savings can be determined only when, and if, district staff sit down with the unions in the coming weeks and months.

As Russell pointed out Wednesday, the savings negotiations yield could be $0 if the district is unable to get concessions from employee groups, or union contracts expire June 30 without new agreements.

There’s also the matter of a city income tax for schools on the May 17 ballot that could net the district between $10 million and $12 million a year. That money, if the city indeed places it on the ballot, and voters approve it, would not be available until May 2012, after 2011 income taxes are filed. But it could affect what school board members and district officials decide to do when formalizing the 2011-12 budget in late May or June.

“I think it could,” said Christine Nesbit, the district’s associate human resources director, who has the task of trying to bring employee groups to the table or, in some cases, back to the table in coming weeks and months. “We have to take a closer look because you don’t want to count your chickens before they hatch.”

The district has contracts with four employee groups: the Eugene Education Association, or EEA, which represents the district’s teachers, and whose current contract expires June 30, 2013; classified employees, who are represented by the Oregon School Employees Association, or OSEA, and whose current contract expires Sept. 30; the Eugene Association of Substitute Teachers, or EAST, whose current contract also expires June 30; and 4JA, which is not a union but an association of the district’s administrators and other professional staff, and whose current agreement also expires June 30.

The greatest number of employees belong to the teachers’ union, and thus the greatest amount of savings to the district would come there. The board voted Wednesday to follow Russell’s recommendation to increase the student-to-teacher staffing ratio at each school by 2½ students or four students for 2011-12. The 2½ number corresponds to laying off 55 teachers, and a ratio increase of four would mean 84 teachers losing their jobs.

Without the hoped-for employee concessions, the district says the staffing ratio increase of four could turn out to be a conservative number come spring.

The district sent a letter to the teachers’ union Dec. 14 to propose bargaining, Nesbit said. But the union has said it is waiting for a clearer financial forecast, especially from the state for the funding it will allocate for schools in the coming biennium.

In an e-mail statement Wednesday, union president Dayna Mitchell said: “EEA encourages the board to continue to look at the local city tax as an option for mitigating some of this financial crisis.”

Mitchell also wants to wait and see the next state financial forecast for the 2011-13 biennium in mid-February, and still hopes the district considers offering an early retirement incentive for employees. The board voted Wednesday to consider early retirement incentives, and district staff are analyzing that option.

“While the intent is not to build this budget on the backs of employees, our continuing reality is that over 85 percent of our budget is in personnel costs,” Russell said Wednesday. “Which means we will have fewer people working for the district, and/or those who do work for us will have to share in the sacrifice to help mitigate some of the impacts so we don’t have to eliminate as many jobs or services. As we increase the (student-to-teacher) ratio substantially, the impact will be both on students and staff, and that’s not a scenario that is consistent with our values, goals and priorities.”

Russell is recommending the district negotiate to have employees take nine to 12 unpaid furlough days in 2011-12. Teachers and classified staff last year agreed to seven furlough days for 2010-11, and administrators agreed to nine.

And if the district cannot get an agreement from employee groups on any furlough days for 2011-12?

“We have to make budget, and we have to plan prudently, and we’ll have to find savings elsewhere,” Nesbit said. And since the board already voted Wednesday on school closures and using up to $5 million in reserves, there would be only one place left to go this spring for “savings elsewhere,” Nesbit said. More employee layoffs.

“Sadly, that’s one of the only things you can control,” she said.

Under union contracts, pay, other compensation, work hours and similar issues have to be negotiated, but the district can unilaterally implement layoffs.