School Board members –
Below is an exchange of emails with Asst. Super Mike Reynolds, confirming my fears that the first page of the all three Collective Bargaining Agreements, which shows their fiscal impacts, are incomplete and therefore misleading.
My message to Mr. Reynolds:
How much of the fiscal impact for each of the three proposed employee agreements shown in the annual salary schedule – $418K for certificated, $215K for classified and $116K for management – is for the automatic, annual increase in Step and Column?
Do any of these proposed increase amounts include repayment for previously taken non-working deferral days?
Is there any part of this proposed fiscal impact that could be considered an actual raise in District employees' salaries?
Mr. Reynolds’s reply:
No portion of the fiscal impact reported as a result of new employee bargaining unit agreements includes the amounts for annual Step and Column as those are already built into the current plus 2-year budget projections. There are no non-working deferral days related (to) compensation either, and the entire 2 percent can be considered an actual raise in District employees’ salaries.
District Impact Document Misleading
In the Collective Bargaining Agreement's Public Disclosure document, it says that annual Step and Column amounts should be included. Clearly in Mr. Reynolds’s email, he says that the Step and Column increases are not included. Right there is a $500,000 annual impact that is missing and could be seen as a legal violation. Also the figures given in each Collective Bargaining Agreement as a first-, second- and third-year increase are so simply given as to be considered deceiving.
Negotiated raises are perpetual. That means that in multi-year agreements, let's use a five-year scenario, a raise given in the first year carries into the second year and each year thereafter through the fifth year. Raises given in the second year are factored into each succeeding year.
Let’s call the amount of the negotiated raise “X.”
Do not be fooled. It is not just adding up the yearly raises three separate times, once for each year given, as suggested in all theCollective Bargaining Agreements. 1X + 1X + 1X = 3X. It is slightly more complicated. To find the overall full impact of the raises, it actually would be 1X + 2X + 3X = 6X. When this arithmetical progression is carried out to the 5th year of the agreement, it adds up to 15X. 1X + 2X + 3X + 4X + 5X = 15X
This progressive formula would also apply to both the additional statutory benefits and the Step and Column increases paid by the District on behalf of and to its employees. When you add the 2 percent raises from each Collective Bargaining Agreement together with their mandatory statutory benefits being paid each year, it comes to $813,000. Now add the mysteriously missing Step and Column cost of $500,000. It adds up to an annual District cost of $1.3M for each year or an annual increase of 3.2 percent in District employee costs.
Do not be lulled into thinking this across-the-board 2 percent raise merely is a straight-forward math problem. You are being asked to make a major commitment of over $19.5M in the next five years. That would raise the District's cost of employing its staff by almost 50 percent over the next five years.
Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMLaase@aol.com
