The Santa Maria Elementary Education Association and Santa Maria-Bonita School District failed to compromise on salary increases and other benefits at a negotiation session on Feb. 7, resulting in an official impasse.
The entities will continue negotiations through a mediator, according to the Santa Maria-Bonita School District.
“The district is hopeful that with the facilitation provided through a mediator, we can reach common ground that will lead to a fair, equitable, and sustainable agreement,” Santa Maria-Bonita Superintendent Luke Ontiveros said in a staement.
But the entities vastly disagree on numerous issues.
While the Education Association had hoped for a 3 percent on-schedule salary increase for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years, Santa Maria-Bonita offered only one-time bonuses, which would be 1 percent of each employee’s current salary, for each school year.
Santa Maria-Bonita also offered a 1 percent on-schedule salary increase for both years and a $640 increase to the health and welfare cap, but in exchange for permanent language in the contract that would allow the district to exceed the state class size limit for some grades. Once in the contract, according to an impasse side-by-side posted on the Education Association’s website, that would allow the district to keep classes larger permanently. But the education association wanted to preserve the right to negotiate for smaller class size in the future.
The Education Association and district also disagreed on health and welfare benefits—Santa Maria-Bonita offered nothing more than the $640 cap increase, while the Education Association suggested an increase in the district contribution to $14,060 per member from the current $13,060 for 2017-18, and no additional increase for 2018-19.
The Education Association, according to its side-by-side, also wanted parents who are both employed by the district to get 12 weeks of child bonding leave for each child. The district offered the minimum leave required by law, which would require the parents to split the 12 weeks of leave. Teachers would also like an additional 100 minutes of preparation time for those teaching grades K through six.
In a response to the impasse, Santa Maria-Bonita blamed ongoing increases in employee pension payout costs and its impacts to the district’s budget for the low offers in its most recent negotiations. This year alone, Santa Maria-Bonita School District said it is contributing nearly $16.8 million to the California State Teachers’ Retirement Systems (CalSTRS) to fund the retirement of its approximately 870 current certificated employees, an increase from last year of about $2.5 million. And CalSTRS rates will continue to increase for many school districts in coming years.
But the Education Association has thoroughly crunched Santa Maria-Bonita’s budget, according to Michael Schaefer, second vice president of the Education Association, and he said there is room for reasonable increases to employee salary and benefits. The district has plenty of state funding, Schaefer said, and at least some of that should be directed at recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers.
“The price of homes, the price of milk and eggs, they aren’t going down,” Schaefer told the Sun. “The district can meet all of their goals and give us a small on-schedule salary raise. Not small, but something reasonable.”
Schaefer said negotiations between Santa Maria-Bonita and the Education Association have dragged out and become somewhat contentious in years past, and he has hopes that this year, the district will be more willing to compromise with its teachers.
They are capable of giving us more than they’re offering and in doing so, it would be a win-win,” Schaefer said. “Not only would we as teachers have a win, but it would be good for the school district and students.”
This article appears in Feb 15-22, 2018.