Nonini and Goedde take a swing at education!

The House Education Committee voted yesterday morning to print two bills that not only propose to reduce next year’s appropriation for public schools by millions of dollars from this year’s budget but would also gut the state’s collective bargaining law for teachers. The two bills address issues that some legislators believe are necessary for dealing with the state’s financial crisis. One of the bills (H0118) deals strictly with transportation issues will take away funding for field trips and extracurricular activities trips. In Coeur d Alene school district would lose 30% of their funding. Superintendent Hazel Bauman said this would mean that field trips would be canceled unless children and their parents paid more out of pocket expense.

The other one (H0117) lumps all the budget cuts together and substantially alters the law under which teachers have negotiated their master contracts since 1971.

This bill would

• Eliminate the Early Retirement Incentive Program (ERIP)
• Freeze one year’s worth of teacher and administrator movement on the salary schedule
• Freeze the multiplier at the current level on the statewide salary schedule
• Change the deadline for notifying employees of re-employment from May 25 to July 1
• Allow districts to reduce the pay or contract days of continuing contract teachers, even in the middle of a year, with the stipulation that any such reductions cannot impact student-teacher contact time
• Permit districts to increase the length of a contract without a commensurate salary increase
• Eliminate a formal hearing process for reduction of salary or reduction of contract time for employees and only allow them an informal review with all other affected employees in one hearing
• Allow districts to hire only 95% of the state-funded teaching positions, rather than the current 100%, without losing funding
• Reduce the number of administrative positions funded by the state by 4.7%
• Reduce the maximum length of principal and assistant superintendent contracts from two years to one year
• Specify that master contracts expire at the end of each fiscal year (June 30) and that no terms or conditions carry forward
• Grant districts the right to impose a Reduction in Force (RIF) and reduce salaries and contract days after the expiration of master contracts if a financial emergency is declared by the state

Superintendent Tom Luna has been saying that, other than eliminating ERIP, any statutory changes would be temporary. However, there is not a single sunset clause attached to any of these proposals. They would all be permanent.

How does gutting the collective bargaining and teacher contract laws help the state deal with its financial woes? The fiscal note attached to the bill answers that question by acknowledging that the bargaining provisions “do not have a fiscal impact on the state.” They are included in the legislation to “provide school districts with the additional tools and flexibility that they will need to manage a likely reduction in state funding for employee salaries.”

Bill (H0117) was introduced by Rep. Bob Nonini (R-Coeur d’Alene) who is also the chair of the House Education Committee and is co-sponsored by Speaker of the House Lawerence Denney (R-Midvale), Senate President Pro Tem Sen. Bob Geddes (R-Soda Springs), and Sen. John Goedde (R-Coeur d’Alene), chair of the Senate Education Committee.

The legislators who voted against this draconian measure were Donna Pence (D-Gooding), Liz Chavez (D-Lewiston), Branden Durst (D-Boise), Sue Chew (D-Boise) and Tom Trail (R-Moscow). They were outnumbered by Mack Shirley (R-Rexburg), Sharon Block (R-Twin Falls), Pete Nielsen (R-Mountain Home), Marge Chadderdon (R-Coeur d’Alene), Paul Shepherd (R-Riggins), Rich Wills (R-Glenns Ferry), Steven Thayn (R-Emmett), Marc Gibbs (R-Grace), Stephen Hartgen (R-Twin Falls), and Jeff Thompson (R-Idaho Falls).

Representatives Donna Boe (D-Pocatello) and Jim Marriott (R-Blackfoot) were absent and did not vote.

IEA President Sherri Wood told a reporter: “Basically, it’s an attack on collective bargaining and negotiations that have been in place since 1971. It says every contract will end at the end of the school year and you have to start all over again. That’s just an attack on educators, and has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with budget cuts. This is mean-spirited and it’s wrong, and it doesn’t need to happen.”

Sen. Shawn Keough (R-Sandpoint) told the same reporter that she is “distressed” by this far-reaching legislation. “It looks as though a sledgehammer was used when a scalpel was needed. My experience has been that the teachers union and teachers individually understand where we are with our economy, and have been trying to work with some of us …. Today’s developments are distressing …. We need everybody to pull together. This doesn’t do us any good, in my opinion.”

Note: the House and Senate Education Committees will hold a joint hearing next week, beginning at 8:30 a.m. Monday, Feb. 16, and continuing Tuesday and Wednesday. The hearing is scheduled to last until 10:30 or 11 a.m. each day. IEA President Sherri Wood will testify Monday morning and other IEA members will share their perspectives as well.

Then, on Friday, Feb. 20, Rep. Nonini and Sen. Goedde will present their committees’ recommendations for next year’s appropriation to the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.

The following Monday, Feb. 23, the House Education Committee will begin debating the collective bargaining bill. A vote will likely be taken shortly thereafter.