February 11, 2009
Shining a light on teacher contracts
The public should "trust" us to do the right thing, says the president of the Saugerties Board of Education, who opposes a fellow-board member's proposal to let the public see tentative labor contracts 30 days before the board ratifies them.
Steven Haun's proposal reflects the recommendations of the Empire Center report Lifting the Shroud of Secrecy From Public Employee Contracts. It points out many school districts and local governments keep citizens in the dark about tentative contracts until they are ratified, too late for them to be debated or altered.
Calling for a 30-day public review, Haun says:
"This additional oversight to the current collective bargaining process will create a higher degree of accountability to the private sector, homeowners, retirees and folks on fixed incomes," Haun said in a letter to the editor of a local newspaper. "The current financial rate of increase for elementary and secondary education is unsustainable."
In stating his position, Haun noted the Saugerties school district's largest budget expenditure is personnel costs and that salaries and benefits for unionized school employees are negotiated by a collective bargaining process that involves taxpayer-funded negotiators and three Board of Education members. He said the lack of public notification and involvement in the negotiation process has, in part, led to one of the nation's heaviest state and local tax burdens.
School Board President Donald Tucker told the Kingston Daily Freeman that Haun's proposal would hamper the negotiation process.
"I'm not in disfavor of anyone seeing it when it's done, but the people trust us to negotiate with the unions in good faith," Tucker said.
Tucker said he did not know of any school district that shares contract information prior to approval, and he added that the Saugerties district and its unions usually agree not to go public with the details of a contract until after ratification.
However, a spokesman for the State School Boards Association, says there's no rule stopping school districts from making tentative contracts public in advance of the final vote by a school board.
Saugerties currently is in contract negotiations with its administrator's union.
Contracts for the Saugerties teachers union and the school superintendent are posted on www.SeeThroughNY.net as well as contracts for more than 700 school districts in New York.
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