The following comments were written by Commissioner Bollinger and published in the Leader Telegram. I will post my own thoughts on these ideas in the Comments section following.
Maria
"At the board meeting on June 4th, I displayed a spreadsheet on the boardroom overhead. It contained a numeric budgetary discussion of the salary and benefit projections of the total employee expense in our district. It was not directed at any specific union. I did this in a spirit of candid and open exchange with our tax paying public. I also said that I could not in good conscience support increases at a time when we were cutting programs.
I cited a potential $3.6 million savings that can be achieved by having our employee groups accept a ONE TIME pay freeze. I suggested this in a very unique year for the Eau Claire School District. A year in which benefit costs actually decreased. This means that I am asking all employees to voluntarily forgo a raise, only.
Typically, the QEO (qualified economic offer) is used as an assumption in the district budget model. It applies a 3.8% package to the budget increase as is mandated for teachers by state statue. If that amount is not offered we risk going to binding arbitration. Past practice has been to offer all employee groups the same amount as what is settled with the teachers (a sense of fairness I believe has created this tradition). Therefore I used the 3.8% projection in the budget model against the total Salary/Benefits amount to derive the $3.6 million savings number I mentioned in the meeting.
Keep in mind, the board must still cut $2.5 million from the budget over the next two years and class sizes have already increased. That was the thrust of my comments Monday night.
I tried to say very clearly at the board meeting - a freeze for ALL EMPLOYEES allows us to address this. I also said it had nothing to do with 'deserve' because every employee does great work. Teachers in particular do yeoman's work at a job they love for adequate but definitely not 'get rich' wages. I am quoting another, but I these words sum it up..."Teachers think that everyone works at Microsoft, and the community thinks Teachers are riding the gravy train...neither one is correct".
What bothers me about the trade off in increases in pay - is people losing their job. I went to the layoff session with Jo Burke for teachers...and it bothered me to no end with a deep sadness. Last year, over a dozen people LOST THEIR JOB. That has got to end, this board needs breathing room to do some real strategic planning and to hire our next leader.
When I worked in the Cheyenne Schools, we had a salary freeze (not benefits) for 2 years. We accepted that as the trade off for keeping jobs in the bargaining unit ranks - Wyoming is a right to work State. It was difficult but we accepted it knowing we could keep positions, retirement and benefits level.
I would not even float this idea of a freeze were it not for the zero impact to our hardworking employees in this unique of years. We may need to go to referendum again, and soon. Can anyone really gauge if our community will support one? The households in Eau Claire are crushed under the weight of increasing expenses as well. At a time when their resources are stretched, tax increases make voters angry. I know, I hear from them all the time.
I am heartened by the optimism in and of the community. I have had many offers of support, expertise and assistance. The goodwill generated by every employee (EVERY EMPLOYEE) taking a pay freeze will create the kind of environment where our voters feel like we are doing everything we can."
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9 comments:
A couple of my own thoughts about Mr. Bollinger's pay freeze ideas:
1. Mr. Bollinger is a member of the Negotiations team for the BOE. I think it is INAPPROPRIATE for him to make advance statements about what he may or may not support during the future negotiation process.
2. Labor negotiations are a confidential process between two groups who have much in common and much at stake in the outcome. Again, I think that it is INAPPROPRIATE for him to make public statements in advance of the closed sessions. Can we rely on him to keep confidential other closed session information that is not meant to be public?
3. Parties in collective bargaining are supposed to behave in "good faith" during negotiations and not undermine the process by trash talking or grand-standing. Mr. Bollinger's impulsively presenting his own "solution" to the district's budget problem's at a public meeting displays disrespect to the process and the other members of the negotiations.
4. By identifying a 2 year employee pay freeze as the solution to the budget "crisis" he ignores the reality that Administrative and BOE leadership has utterly failed to PLAN AHEAD.
5. Most importantly, Mr. Bollinger's impulsive and public call for a pay freeze is simply out of line because he is not an employee and he is usurping the appropriate right of the employees to make that offer themselves in the proper time and place which is during negotiations.
There is no doubt in my mind that all of the employee groups recognize that their future combined compensation (either as hourly wages or in the number of employees) will be impacted. After all, many are teachers and they can certainly "do the Math!"
So instead of allowing the employee groups to make their own offer of wage or job concessions and participate in solving the budget shortfalls, Mr. Bollinger jumps in with both feet and his mouth wide open about what he thinks should happen.
The transportation company, Student Transit, made a voluntary gesture to forgo their 2.8% CPI adjustment in their contract for next year. It was generous and helpful. More importantly it was THEIR OFFER to make and they did it. WIN-WIN. Everybody looks good and feels good in that situation.
How do you think Student Transit and every other vendor (XCEL Energy, textbook manufacturers, cafeteria suppliers, etc...) would feel if they were identified publicly and basically told that there was not enough money to pay them for their services and they were expected to "freeze" their charges to the ECASD for the next 2 years? Pretty darn resentful and defensive, is my guess.
My thoughts for our very own Cowboy Bollinger who thinks he is the Lone Ranger and can solve every problem: Listen more. Talk less. Ask more questions. Give fewer answers. Look for expertise that others have. Include more people. Make others look good. Give other people a chance to participate.
This is a copy of an e-mail sent by Jo Burke, Pres. of the ECAE to Mr. Bollinger after he went out of his way at the June 18th BOE Meeting to gush over the voluntary forgoing of the CPI adjustment offered by Student Transit for their contract for the 2007-08 year. I asked Ms. Burke for permission to reprint it here.
Mr. Bollinger,
In light of the celebratory climate at tonight’s school board meeting, particularly in commending the transportation company (as you coached them to point out their ‘sacrifice’), I would have liked to join the celebration by pointing out some other sacrifices. No public comment was allowed at that point, or later.
The Fye Company deserves commendation for their willingness to help with the budget crisis. But as or more important than a one-time sacrifice of their increase in private, for-profit compensation (not, as you referred to as their ‘increase in cost’) are the years of sacrifice given by teachers. How?
· For over 14 years, teachers have taken less than a cost of living raise, and have now fallen behind as a state, below the national average. This has caused us to fall even further behind our colleagues with comparable degrees, who earn $18 to $20,000 more after college.
· The Board has eliminated over 40 teaching positions this year alone. That is added to the positions lost each year to attrition/retirements. With the loss of these positions come added burdens and responsibility for other teachers.
· In increasing class size, the Board has compromised the teaching/learning environment, adding stress and responsibility for all of us. This comes with NO added compensation, although many districts do provide such compensation.
· The increase in demands due to ‘No Child Left Behind’ have added paperwork, data collecting and stress. While we have been encouraged to ask for compensation for this, we have not done so.
· As Don Johnson celebrated (and thanked teachers for) the great test scores that our students have achieved, you might have taken the same opportunity to ‘coach’ him as to the many other sacrifices we have given to the district.
I’d hope that you would spend as much or more time pointing out these sacrifices to the public as you do with that of the transportation company and your simplistic-sounding salary freeze. I doubt you will. I also doubt you’ll mention Dr. Klaus’ announcement that WI is one of only 11 states with DECLINING taxes.
The one-time savings for the District from the transportation company sacrifice: $115,000
The savings for the District from all that teachers have given up for years: FAR more (dare we say ‘priceless’?)
Jo Burke
Very interesting. As we may believe that Bollinger has 'shown his hand' in terms of his negotiating position, I don't believe for a second that the union was planning on going in and asking for anything less than 3.8%. Do you? Both sides already have their predetermined outcome in mind, only one of them is saying it publicly.
And, since the union has chosen to take benefits in lieu of salary over the last several years, wasn't that their choice? Every time the union speaks of their 'compensation' going down, it strikes many people as more that a little dishonest, as their total packages have gone up by greater than the inflation rate for years. They have taken the hit in salaries, and employees in the private sector have taken it in benefits. The tax payers can see through the double-speak, and have grown quite suspicious of the union leadership as a result. If you doubt that, just remember the letters to the LT prior to the referendum.
Whether anyone likes it or not, the taxpayers will LOVE Bollinger for daring to address the issue of compensation. It wouldn't surprise me if he has guaranteed his reelection already.
I believe in open and honest communication. All views are welcome, and I read them all.
Maria, just one minor correction - I suggested a 1 year pay freeze not two.
Cheers.
Good stuff here - interesting. Keep up the efforts towards dialogue.
I like the letter in tonight's LT called Union Forgets Young Members. It could have been written about the teacher's union and their (apparent) willingness to lose jobs, increase class sizes and eliminate courses rather than take concessions. I guess that is one way to look out for your constituents - throw some to the lions and protect the ones who are left. I guess the other way would be to protect all their jobs - period. That's what the Teamsters do.
By the way, it seems hypocritical that the host demands openness and transparency from the Board members in everything except for contract negotiations. Everybody has their sacred cows.
Apparently it would be better for Jo Burke to ride in on her white horse and gallantly "offer" to help balance the budget rather than have those who have been charged with fixing the problem actually propose a solution. If the end result is the same, most of us don't care who gets to look good. And since this problem has been a long time coming, there have been plenty of other opportunities for the union to help fix the budget. They didn't have to until now, when the taxpayers finally demanded some accountability and planning from all the groups involved.
Both commissioners Bollinger and Craig recognize the need for some structural sustainability in the ECASD budget that goes beyond a referendum, but they seem to be going at it in different but not necessarily conflicting ways. Commissioner Bollinger also recognizes the basic fact that personnel costs are at the heart of any solution while Commissioner Craig would develop a set of community priorities to guide future cuts. President O'Brien has urged consensus, I have heard discussions by some board members of possible ways to involve the private sector in funding . It appears to me that various members of the board are working on the problem from a number of directions and maybe what is needed at this point is just time to have all of these ideas develop and form some coherent policy based on as close to consensus as the board and various interested publics can get. As a football fan I've heard the description of an ideal defensive lineman as someone able to play chess while the walls of the building are falling down. Maybe that is also what it takes to be a school board member these days. I think I'll just sit back and watch the game and see how they do.
Twenty years ago when the report “A Nation at Risk” was issued, the problem of the teachers unions mostly went unnoticed. Since then, many school reform experts have been focusing on the unions and the inverse relationship between their political power and the academic achievement of public school students. That there has been little or no improvement in test scores has been attributed to the existence of an entrenched special interest that defends the status quo and repels any progress or reform that doesn’t directly benefit itself. That special interest is the teachers unions.
In Peter Brimelow’s terrific book, “The Worm in the Apple: How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education,” he quotes from the Washington Post article “Teachers against Reform” (from July 7, 2000):
“The national teacher unions want to be seen as defenders of public education and advocates of reform. But when you move beyond the rhetoric, you find them too often simply defending the status quo, even when that status quo means inferior education for too many children.” (P.197)
What’s good for the union?
Why have the unions been given such a pass? Much of it can be credited to their effective public relations efforts. According to Brimelow, “The Teacher Trust wants the clout of the AFL-CIO, coupled with the public image of the dedicated schoolmarm. And, by and large, it’s been getting it.” (Brimelow p.171)
Brimelow says the unions have fostered the idea that “what’s good for the unions is good for the teachers, what’s good for the teacher must be good for education.” In fact, according to the Education Intelligence Agency’s Mike Antonucci, “it’s not at all unusual for teachers to be uncertain to which of the two major unions they belong.” (Brimelow p. 58)
The NEA has had such success in equating itself with ‘the teachers’ in the public mind that even union critics fail to differentiate between the views of the NEA headquarters, its affiliates, their staffs, their locals, and their rank-and-file members. Union propaganda, and countervailing criticism from education reform organizations, assumes that whatever comes out of union headquarters must reflect the feelings of classroom teachers themselves. (Brimelow p. 58)
Peter Brimelow and other writers have begun to reveal the extent of the political power of the teachers unions. The union stranglehold reaches to school administrations, state bureaucracies, and locally elected school boards, and has resulted in the current state of American K-12 public education. David Denholm is someone who has written extensively on the subject of school reform and the problem of the teachers unions. Denholm is the President of the Public Service Research Foundation located in Vienna, Virginia. In his article “Confronting Teacher Union Power,” Denholm writes that the teachers unions “are involved in virtually every aspect of education.” “All too often,” he says,
“the proponents of reform, because they fear to appear to be ‘anti-union,’ refuse to confront the power of the teacher unions. They want to believe the problems can be solved without confronting the power of the teacher unions and by doing so, they fall right into the unions’ hands…”
The teachers are not the union
David Denholm has observed that “the teachers are not the union.” “Remember that many members of the community will have strong, good, personal feelings about the teachers.” And if you are going to begin this discussion, he warns: “Teacher union power is based on membership, money and prestige. When you begin to attack these sources of power, you must expect a reaction.”
“The teacher unions,” Denholm says, “are substantially responsible for the decline in the quality of public education, are adamant that their opposition to reforms is based on the need to preserve and protect public education.”
Terry Moe, Stanford University political science professor, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and co-author of “Politics Markets & Schools,” referred to what he says is the “most fundamental issue” during a Brookings Institute forum on April 11, 2000 entitled “Teachers Unions: Do They Help or Hurt Education Reform?”:
“We need to begin by understanding what motivates them (the unions), and understand what their interests are, because their interests will tell us what we can expect them to do, allow us to understand and ultimately predict their behavior.”
Moe elaborated:
“…what are the fundamental interests of teachers unions?…[T]hey want to promote the material well being and the job security of their members, teachers, and they want to maintain and increase their own membership as unions, their resources, and their power…It doesn’t make them bad, it make them like all the other groups that are out there. We’re just trying to characterize their basic interests.”
To clarify, Moe added:
“Now, notice what I have not said. I have not said anything about good schools, making the schools better, or doing what’s best for kids. Now, I think teachers care about that, definitely, and unions leaders care about that. But it’s not fundamental to the interests of the union.”
And it would appear with the resources available to the unions, in financial resources, political power, and human capital, it’s conceivable that they’d have made more progress in bringing about the kind of reforms that would lead to higher student academic achievement…if they truly wanted to.
Later in the forum, Moe discussed the fact that everyone packages “their own position in terms of the public interests” (i.e. good public schools and quality education).
“And so there’s a rhetoric of the public interest that everyone adheres to when they’re engaged in political debate. And that rhetoric makes it difficult to discern what the real interests are beneath the surface. But if we want to understand what’s going on we have to get beneath the surface and talk about the real interests…”
In his book “Inside American Education,” Thomas Sowell wrote the following:
* The NEA and AFT – both organizations are highly effective lobbying groups at both the federal and state levels, and both aim much advertising at the general public, both to generate a favorable image of teachers and to get the public used to seeing education issues in a certain framework, favorable to the profession—for example, to equate more money for the public school establishment with ‘an investment in better education.’ Everything from television commercials to bumper stickers promote their cause, unopposed by any comparable organized counter-propaganda.” (p. 22)
* "Teachers’ unions do not represent teachers in the abstract. They represent such teachers as actually exist in today’s public schools. These teachers have every reason to fear the competition of other college graduates for jobs, to fear any weakening of iron-clad tenure rules, and to fear any form of competition between schools that would allow parents to choose where to send their children. Competition means winners and losers—based on performance, rather than seniority or credentials.” (p. 27)
It’s a simple matter of interests. In “The Teachers Unions,” Myron Lieberman wrote:
“The NEA and AFT cannot say ‘We’re opposed to contracting out because it’s not good for the union’ or ‘not good for the employees.’ Politically, because teachers are public employees, they must cite public policy, not special interest reasons to justify their opposition.” (p.127)
In an article entitled “Confronting Teacher Union Power” David Y. Denholm wrote:
There is a growing awareness that America's system of public education is in trouble. Not only are scores on standardized tests low but also colleges are reporting that record numbers of students are in need of remedial classes upon reaching college and employers complain that high school graduates are unemployable because they do not possess the basic skills of reading, writing and figuring at a level sufficient to perform routine entry-level work.
This disaffection with the quality of public education and the apparent futility of meaningful reform is beginning to challenge the very precepts upon which America's system of public education is based. Too many in the education establishment are in denial. They insist that the public schools are doing a good job of educating students.
Even parents who say that they think public education is not what it should be are very pleased with their own schools. But, the obvious need for improvement in public education is encouraging many people to become active in promoting reforms and improvements in the schools. Unfortunately, when they consider "education reform" issues, they do not give enough consideration to teacher unions. This is misguided because teacher unions are a very powerful force in determining education policy. All too often, the unions are dismissed as dealing only with personnel policy, which too many people don't really see as "education" policy.
This ignores the fact that the unions are involved in virtually every aspect of education. Whether it is curriculum, textbook selection, discipline or particularly the cost of education, the unions are very concerned and have a profound influence.
The Three Manifestations of Political Power
Denholm says the unions’ political power manifests in three ways:
First, teacher unions gain political power through the vast financial resources they control as a result of their monopoly status. These resources are used in a variety of ways to influence political outcomes. The unions sponsor political action committees with which they provide direct support to candidates and causes. They also maintain an army of highly trained, well paid political operatives that they can put into the field on short notice to influence elections.
Second, even though teachers are less than two percent of the population and surveys have shown that a very large minority of teachers do not share the union's left leaning political views, those teachers who are union zealots are highly motivated and well educated. As volunteers, even a small cadre of such activists can have a substantial influence on the outcome of a political campaign.
The third, and perhaps largest source of union political influence, is a question of perception. When the teacher unions endorse candidates, they proclaim them as the "education" candidates. The typical voter, not realizing the negative impact of unionism on education, or that these so-called "education" candidates are, in reality, those who are committed to maintaining the union's stranglehold, frequently vote for these candidates thinking that they are voting for better public schools.
The teachers unions are the problem. David Denholm summed it up succinctly: “Indeed, if anything is ever going to be done to make meaningful changes in education and restore the quality of public education in America, teacher union power must be confronted.” Since the likelihood of such confrontation coming from the elected ranks, where fear of union political power is most acute, that opposition must come from organized, informed citizen activists.
Might I suggest that if the freeze is no great thing then the Board should set an example and go on record that their family income will not increase any more than the teachers whose contracts they control. Since most of the Board members make more money than a teacher that should not be a problem for any of them. In addition since more people in Eau Claire felt the referendum should not pass, causing this problem, they should also be willing to go without any income increase for the next two years. Just because the teacher's money comes from taxes that doesn't mean they have to be treated this way.
Commissioner Bollinger was a recent guest on state representative Terry Moultan's PAC 12 weekly (I think it is weekly) TV show. representative Smith and State Senators, Kreitlow and Vinehout also do regular PAC 12 shows. He essentially presented the same material and perspective he does in his post on this blog with the addition of a visual aid showing recent compensation figures for ECASD teachers.
I found his presentation informative in terms of the relative salary adjustments vs benefit packages that have been the basis of recent contracts. I believe the major concern of the union is this disparity based on the cumulative effects of low salary increase in terms of eventual total compensation over a teaching career and retirement benefits that are in some cases determined by end of career salary level.
But be that as it may I found his presentation opened up the issue for me at least and I appreciate having all relevant facts open to public scrutiny as opposed to
demanding secrecy in negotiations,
My advice to teachers is to follow his PR example and establish a periodic PAC 12 show that deals with a variety of education related community topics and include their case in a more effective PR manner concentrating on factual presentations when it comes to salary and compensation issues and do so in a firm but non-confrontational mode. There is IMHO , whether justified or not, a general public perception that the teachers are in general (there was one LTE exception) either whinng, complaining, or attacking in their response. Not good PR.
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