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AUSD employees ‘share the pain’ with 2% cut
By Lori Bledsoe
The Alpine Sun
ALPINE — In an unprecedented wave of
support the Alpine Union School District teachers and classified
employees, via their unions, stepped up to the plate to offer
real solutions to deal with the current economic dilemmas. In
keeping with the true essence of their positions in our
community, the educators of Alpine took in the current
information that is available, considered possible resolutions
to budget woes, which included employment losses, and did the
math. Their answer was cutting back on salaries, time, and
incentives to save jobs. Tightening the proverbial belt was
overall choice, rather than losing valuable employees.
Diane Anderson, representative from the local
California School Employees Association (CSEA), stood up and
presented her report to the board, saying that the honorable
employees of the district are working hard at their job, knowing
that they will be taking a salary cut over the next few years so
that this district can continue to educate and care for the
children of Alpine. She added that the district challenged all
to come together as a family and solve the deficit spending
problem.
Pam Meers, President of the Alpine Teachers Association
reported to the board that the teachers of the district
understand that 85 percent of the budget is for salaries. She
proudly said that the teachers chose a two percent reduction in
order to keep the crisis away from the children. According to
Meers, all of AUSD’s teachers were polled on the proposed
two-year salary cuts, the majority voting to approve the
decrease.
“You are to be commended for your unselfishness,” she
said.
Through this compromise, Meers said, students will
still attend classes, class size will be maintained and teachers
and classified employees will be able to keep their jobs, “all
because you were able to prove that you had can work together
for the common good of the students.”
Superintendent Greg Ryan surmised the agreement that
was presented the board.
“This item came out of some agonizing hours of
negotiation in an unprecedented manner with CSEA, ATA and the
district all in the same room trying to meet the common needs of
everybody,” he said.
The summary of the proposal includes: Two percent
salary cuts for employees for two years; a reduction in two
non-teaching days for two years; five minutes from each workday
and school day to be cut; and giving up the attendance incentive
for teachers over the next three years, which will save the
district approximately $90,000. Also, Ryan added that the
teachers voluntarily gave up a 1 percent bonus that had already
been approved for this year.
“I think that’s a lot of effort by our teachers to make
things work,” Ryan said.
He added that he was hearing concerns about the five
minutes being taken out of the school day. He said this is also
concerns him to some degree, however, the principals have
already started talking to their staff members, and are devising
ways to implement this reduction without reducing instructional
time, such as reducing school assembly times. He said that in
light of these discussions he is comfortable in saying that
there should be no impact to the students compared to what’s
going on right now.
Ryan offered an example; “at Alpine Elementary, they
are involved in a P.E. program that requires 150 minutes a week,
the state requirement is 100 minutes a week. They will be
cutting back on P.E. starting next year, so there won’t be any
instructional time lost, in fact there will probably be
instructional time gained... We are talking about decreasing the
allocated time, but not looking at the instructional time and
the academic learning time.”
With the passing of this motion, Ryan anticipates a
more focused instructional and academic learning time.
“This offer is incredibly generous... and I have no
problem supporting this,” said board member Ann Pierce.
Scott Barr welcomed the support of the teachers and
classified employees, and added that if any community could pull
this off, it was Alpine. He said that he could not imagine
rejecting this offer of ‘sharing the pain.’ “Everyone may get
sunburn, but no one is going to lose an arm,” he said.
Mark Price posed the question to the Superintendent,
about how much this agreement will help to save the jobs of
those who have issued pink slips.
The Superintendent prefaced his answer to this question
in saying that the district is still waiting on the budget from
the state, as well as the federal stimulus. They are hoping to
know more on these two issues by the end of Spring Break.
Ryan answered then by saying, “certainly the approval
of this agreement will result in me recommending to the board to
rescind all the layoff notices that were given at the last board
meeting.” He added, “In addition to that, it will result in the
rescinding some of the ones from the previous board meeting.”
Due to the fact that the district is facing declining
enrollment, the total number of layoff notices to be rescinded
are not definite. Ryan said again, “The majority of the layoff
notices will be rescinded.”
When the vote was called to accept the tentative
agreements reached by the district and employee unions, the
board was nonetheless split. Members Gina Henke and Mark Price
voted against approval of the teacher’s agreement, while Scott
Barr, Eric Wray and Ann Pierce vote in support. Price was alone
in voting against the approval of the CSEA agreement, with Henke
joining the other three members in support.
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