The Latest in Negotiations with CMNEA and CPS

School board team wants CPS teacher salary discussions to wait

By ROGER MCKINNEY

Tuesday, March 1, 2016 

Any discussion about raising salaries for Columbia Public Schools teachers must wait until after the April 5 election, CPS Deputy Superintendent Dana Clippard told the negotiating team for the teachers union on Monday.

The Columbia Missouri National Education Association team earlier in the meeting had presented its proposal to restore salaries frozen in 2009-10. Kathy Steinhoff, CMNEA president, said the step could be restored using district reserve funds.“I just hope this is something we can agree to very soon,” Steinhoff said.

“This is the utmost importance to everybody in our unit,” said CMNEA team member Mary Grupe. Restoring the frozen step was the proposal the fewest number of members wanted to drop when surveyed last week after the district limited its proposals to five in addition to salary.

The CMNEA team last week introduced its request to increase the minimum salary for teachers to $35,402 and raise teachers’ base pay by 6 percent, to $32,344. New university graduates receive the minimum salary their first four years on the job. In the fifth year, salaries are calculated with a formula using the base pay.

The April 5 ballot will include a CPS proposal to increase its property tax levy to fund operations by 65 cents per $100 of assessed valuation to raise an extra $14.625 million annually. Nearly half of that would be dedicated to improving employee salaries. There’s also a $30 million bond issue on the ballot, with no tax increase required.

After the meeting, Clippard did not answer directly when asked if the district’s position on compensation depends on the election result.

“We’re saying it’s premature to do compensation until after the election,” Clippard said. “We’re asking for a deferred discussion.”

She said it was important to discuss the salary request and restoring frozen salaries at the same time, rather than separately, because both are related to compensation.

“I think we need to be sensitive to the issues the election presents to the voters and the timing of these discussions,” Clippard said.

Grupe said after the session that it seems the board’s team is saying that the district’s answer on salaries will depend on the election result. She said it would have been simple for the board’s team to address the frozen salaries.

“What a way to demonstrate value to teachers,” she said. “We believe it can be done regardless of the bond and levy election.”

The CMNEA team was allowed to present five proposals in addition to the salary proposal. One of them was restoring frozen salaries.

Others were:

• Protection of planning time.
• Twelve days of short-term leave per year, with unused time accumulating and the ability to use five consecutive days.
• The right for a teacher to have a representative present during disciplinary meetings with supervisors.
• A limit of two hours per month of required meetings and events outside the school day, with 24 hours notice provided and none before 6:30 a.m.

Based on the survey, the CMNEA team dropped a proposal to protect teacher time during preparation for the school year. The board team agreed to present the proposal to the Columbia Board of Education.

The team representing CPS officials also presented at the end of the meeting its language in response to the CMNEA team’s nonsalary proposals.

“We gave a sincere attempt to capture the essence of their concerns,” Clippard said.

If there is no agreement at the end of the bargaining sessions, the current agreement remains in place through the end of June 2017.