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Lowball offer angers
Mountain Empire teachers
By Christy Scott
The Alpine Sun
PINE VALLEY — In the wake of a no-confidence vote earlier this year, and several years without a teacher raise, Mountain Empire Unified School District has offered a salary increase of between three and six cents per hour.
The offer, discussed last week at the district’s Oct. 19 meeting, prompted anger from Mountain Empire Teacher’s Association President Fred Kamper.
The Mountain Empire teachers have been without a contract for nearly three years and are in their fourth year without a cost of living allowance increase. The district has cited a very tight budget and declining enrollment numbers for the lack of cash for teachers.
According to MEUSD Superintendent Patrick Judd, he inherited the financial problems in the district when he took up the position formerly occupied by current Alpine Union School District Superintendent Greg Ryan. The two sides have been locked in a labor dispute, mainly over salary, for about as long as Judd has had the job.
Currently, MEUSD ranks last among of the 40 districts in the county in teacher salaries. A state-appointed mediator is helping the two sides try work out their differences.
“The most recent salary offer by the school district to the META negotiators shows that Mountain Empire still does not intend to pay its teachers a fair competitive salary,” said META President Fred Kamper. “We still lose good teachers to other districts that are willing to pay their teachers more.”
The district has proposed a half-a-percent pay raise for district teachers and no increase in their Cost of Living Allowance (COLA).
“Disbelief and resentment are words that come to mind when one sees that Mountain Empire values its teachers to the amount of a half-a-percent over four years,” Kamper said. “Mr. Judd has had two years to clean up the problems and come to the negotiations with a fair offer for the teachers. Instead the district has offered a half-a-percent salary increase and a one-time bonus.”
That works out to an eighth-of-a-percent increase per year. The lowest paid teachers in the district would be receiving, on average, a $44.30 per year increase over the four years, or about three cents an hour increase. The highest paid teachers in the district would receive an $86.13 per year increase, or six cents an hour extra.
This year’s district COLA from the State of California is 4.23 percent.
“4.23 percent is what the teachers deserve on their pay checks,” Kamper said. “This offer is not fair, this offer is not adequate, and this offer is not acceptable.”
Earlier this year, local teachers voted 93 percent in favor of a no confidence resolution in Superintendent Patrick Judd. Citing reckless mismanagement of the district's budget and putting student and teacher safety at risk, META President Fred Kamper presented the MEUSD board with the resolution of no confidence at its Feb. 16 meeting. The resolution also charged that Judd had mismanaged the district's budget.
“Judd is continually shifting the district's budget priorities” Kamper said.
The no confidence resolution called on the board to “no longer abrogate management responsibilities to Superintendent Judd in order to settle the labor dispute and make educational excellence a priority.”
“There needs to be more working together among staff and administration,” said board vice president Jim Banks. “I haven't seen it a lot, and I've been on the board three years.”
Banks said he's disappointed that “the administration is not coming to the board with a lot of ideas with regards to a settlement.”
School districts throughout the county and state have been struggling with teachers with regard to salaries. Countywide, 33 of 42 school districts approved salary increases for teachers for the 2004/05 school year. The average countywide salary increase for the year is 2.07 percent, according to the California Teachers Association.
The year before (2003/04), due to state financial woes, the average salary increase countywide was 0.57 percent, according to the local office of the California Teachers Association.
This year, many county districts have been working out deals with employees. The Grossmont district is currently battling with its teachers to come to some sort of agreement.
In East County, salary increases were reported in Alpine, one percent; Cajon Valley, 1.38 percent; La Mesa-Spring Valley, 2.29 percent; and Lakeside, 2.78 percent.
Other school districts on the county reached settlements that take effect during the 2005-06 school year. Poway school district employees, for example, will receive a two percent raise in July and two percent more in February.
The Escondido Elementary School District approved a 2.41 percent salary increase for all employees. Vista teachers signed a new contract in March that calls for a two percent raise starting in July.
The Chula Vista Elementary School District recently reached a tentative agreement after being at an impasse for more than a year. The agreement calls for a two percent increase in July and another two percent in January.
Also discussed at the meeting were contracts for other classified district employees. These include bus drivers, custodians, school secretaries, para-educators, food service workers and others. The board received a initial proposal from the California School Employees Association to begin bargaining for the 2005/06 school year.
The initial proposal from CSEA calls for modifications to health and welfare benefits, saying that the district should be covering more of the cost for teachers. Lay-offs and terms of agreement are also issues to be addressed. According to the proposal the CSEA and the Mountain Empire Teachers Association (META) are also continuing to negotiate for increases to employee wages.
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