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EDITORIAL
School unions out of touch
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Clark County School District employees have proven themselves powerless to stop their union leaders from marching hundreds of members off a fiscal cliff into unemployment.
The groundwork is being laid for layoffs, and those in charge of bargaining on behalf of teachers, administrators and support workers either don't get it or don't give a damn.
For the better part of two decades, educators' contract negotiations focused on the size of annual pay and benefit increases. The money was always there for more, more, more.
The tax money is disappearing quickly now, so quickly in this recession that payrolls must be cut. The Legislature already tried raising taxes to preserve the status quo, with disastrous results for the economy. Now the school district has to make $123 million in cuts for the next academic year.
Superintendent Walt Rulffes wants all school district employees to take 5 percent pay cuts through a combination of salary reductions and furloughs. Mr. Rulffes also wants to suspend the seniority-based "step" raises most district employees receive simply for putting in another year of service, while preserving the raises they get for pursuing advanced college degrees. Those raises are typically between 4 and 5 percent.
It's a reasonable approach, given that all school district employees received 4 percent cost-of-living pay raises in July 2008, even as layoffs and income reductions were beginning to ravage the private sector. In addition, more than 60 percent of school district workers received "step" raises to go along with that COLA in 2008, as well as another "step" in 2009. And they're in line to get at least one more "step" in July.
The average school district worker has seen his or her pay grow more than 12 percent since the recession began.
If you talk to your child's teacher or principal about the issue you'll hear support for measures that avert layoffs and allow schools to keep their existing staffs intact. If the school district has to go ahead with layoffs, it won't affect just those who lose their jobs. Once the most recently hired staff are let go, thousands of retained teachers, specialists and administrators could be transferred to different campuses to fill in the gaps in a massive, seniority-based exercise in bumping and job grabbing "musical chairs" that will leave no campus unchanged.
But the leaders of the Clark County Education Association (the teachers union) and the Clark County Association of School Administrators aren't listening.
The administrators union, in particular, has covered their eyes and ears to the new fiscal realities. They're currently in arbitration with the district because they want taxpayers to pick up a half-percentage-point increase in their pension contributions, rather than have it come out of their ample paychecks. (Taxpayers already pick up the other 21 percent). And their offer of a "concession" for next fiscal year amounts to a reduced pay raise, rather than an actual cut. They know that even if administrative positions are eliminated, their accrued seniority means most will be able to return to a teaching position -- bumping another, younger teacher out of work.
This is the outfit that represents school "leaders." Principals and deans everywhere should be ashamed.
Unionized public education embraces seniority over merit, more's the pity. There are plenty of district employees in central administration -- many paid with federal dollars -- who make almost no difference in the lives of children. And it's unfortunate that Mr. Rulffes wants merely to delay, rather than cancel outright, longevity-based step raises for educators. But the rest of Mr. Rulffes' plan is the right way to go.
The School Board is scheduled to vote April 7 to initiate the layoffs. Teachers and administrators should be taking immediate steps to decertify their unions.
In the meantime, the public can tell heir unions to wake up and get real. Stephen Augspurger, executive director of the administrators union, can be reached at 796-9602, and Ruben Murillo, president of the local teachers union, at 733-3063.
Tell them what you think about their idea of "concessions."
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I would like to say that until ESEA leadership went to the School Board Meeting on March 11, 2010, ESEA heard nothing from the district upper management regarding what we, as the union, would like to do, if anything, about "shared sacrifice". Hence, we responded at the board of trustees' meeting with disapproval of Dr. Rulffes' assessment that there would be "No shared sacrifice". How can the Union even respond if we have not even been approached with a package to even take a look at? Before you write an editorial like this, be sure you understand what is & is not, please. I believe the P.O.A. and the C.C.A.S.A.P.E. responded the same way at the same afforementioned school board meeting. We can always be approached since we are in negotiations over several issues, including, but not limited to,our reduction-in -force article of our current contract. No offense, but you and CCSD could ask before printing. Thanks.
The problem is poor decision making at the expense of Teachers and support staff. It starts at the top with pork barrel spending and unfortunately trickles downward. When you have a group of individuals at the top controlling everyones fate other than themselves, this is the end result. You won't hear the executives adjusting they're pay rate for the simple fact that they run things and know people in high places. The unfortunate thing is that they threaten to cut all employees wages but two new schools are being built in the Northwest part of town. I bet the costs of the new schools equals the majority of the defecit. I don't care who they are at the top, they can't make sound decisions and quite frankly don't know what their doing, hence look at the situation the CCSD is in. I hope their prepared for a ghost town.... It's coming....
If the school unions do not want to give back to the community, then they should be prohibited from representing the teachers and administrators. This can be done. What many do not realize is that we have big cuts in state and local governments coming. They had better prepare now or get wiped out.