PUSD contract talks with teachers union resume

Current school year contract talks between the Poway Unified School District board and the Poway Federation of Teachers resumed Tuesday afternoon after the board voted 4-1 during a special meeting to present its initial proposal.

Following the one-hour public meeting, at which nine mostly-critical speakers shared their views, board members met behind closed doors to further discuss what they were prepared to offer the union in terms of salary adjustments for the school year that ends in June.

Tuesday’s special meeting was made necessary following the Feb. 25 filing of an unfair labor charge against the district by the Poway School Employees Association, a group that represents many of the district’s non-teaching workers. The association alleged in its claim to the Public Employment Relations Board that “the district failed to provide the public with notice of, or an opportunity to be heard regarding the district’s (or PFT’s) initial proposals for these negotiations” before starting contract negotiations last fall as part of the district’s ongoing “Interest-Based Solving model” The “sunshine” disclosure is required under state law.

Talks involving the district and PFT were suspended on March 4 due to the PSEA complaint.

According to a PFT-prepared timeline, the last time an initial contract proposal was “sunshined” was in March 2006. That’s because the PFT believed that a “bi-lateral agreement” adopted at the time “was a living contract to allow us to continually negotiate.”

“We now understand the law and do not dispute that we did not follow the law when we did not sunshine ...” the PFT’s printed time line states. The PFT’s initial proposal was “sunshined” last month.

Tuesday’s one-page initial offer to the PFT was modified a bit before being approved by four of the five board members.

Initially the proposal said the district “will work with the federation using the fiscal Interest-Based Solving model to begin negotiations of a proposal regarding wage.”

But board President Kimberley Beatty presented an alternate version, saying “The district will make a proposal regarding wages after its evaluation of the 2014-15 state budget and its financial impact on the district.”

Board member Charles Sellers voted in opposition to the motion.

Prior to the vote, several members of the public urged the board to spend whatever money is available not on teacher salary increases but on hiring more teachers to lower class sizes.

Candy Smiley, president of the PFT, said that there have been ongoing efforts to reduce class sizes at the secondary level (costing $2.5 million) and that similar efforts will begin next school year at the elementary level. To return PUSD teacher staffing levels to pre-recession levels would cost the district $14.8 million, she told the board.

Poway resident Raymond Usell urged the board to revise the Interest-Based Solving model, calling it “self-serving.”

Wayne Rounsavell was one of several speakers to question the appropriateness of Supt. John Collins serving as the board’s lead negotiator when he would be in line to receive any pay raises agreed upon with the PFT.

Outspoken PUSD critics Tom Moore and Chris Garnier took it a step further, saying they felt Collins should be fired. Moore added that among the reasons voters elected three new board members last fall is that they wanted the “cronyism” in the district eliminated.

“We need to have the board take control of this process,” added Steve Sarviel, another frequent board critic.

The district has settled 2014-15 contract matters with its two other unions.