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>School District Consolidation Will Cost Taxpayers Plenty

This blog sheds some more light on the reasons for school district consolidation.

The original reason I heard was because the more gifted children in rural communities did not have enough academically challenging classes.

Now I learn consolidation would allow the IEA to increase the pay of many teachers, because the merged districts would be converted to a common base salary schedule, and since teachers never take a pay cut, the lower of the two base salary schedules would be replaced with the higher base salary schedule.

Did Governor Quinn take that into account when calculating the supposed “savings” that consolidation would bring?

Not surprisingly, Ken Swanson the President of the IEA has stated he supports school district consolidation.

Consolidation benefits teachers in another way.

It makes the threat of a strike a more powerful negotiating tool for the union. Consolidation creates larger school districts.

The larger the school district, the more problematic a strike, because more kids would be out of school, more parents schedules would be interrupted, etc.

Thus, strikes would be less likely in a larger district than smaller district, is my guess.

The threat to strike is a powerful bargaining tool used by the IEA.

For example, in Chicago (the union is not IEA but CTU which is affiliated with IFT), a strike means 400,000 children are out of school.

There is no ultimate financial drawback for a teacher to go on strike, as the strike days are ultimately made up at the end of a school year. It’s not like the teacher ultimately earns less money due to a strike.

Speaking of school districts, I have a complaint about the pay freeze that was announced by my school district for this 2010-11 school year. Turns out it was not a complete pay freeze. There were exemptions.

Exemption #1. Reading the press release closely, exempted was the 6% end of career salary increase. 6% doesn’t sound so large. Examining the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) website, end of career salary increases in my district last year amounted to over $630,000. $630,000 sounds a whole lot more than 6%.

Exemption #2. Not in the press release, but in the collective bargaining agreement, is the following on page 38, section 11.10 Advanced Coursework, part D. “All employees will be restricted to a maximum of 6 hours per semester, and up to 18 hours per summer not to exceed 18 hours per year for salary movement. Employees will only be allowed 1 lane movement per school year. Hours taken by a teacher in excess of those required for horizontal lane movement within a school year, may be applied to the next school year.”

Say what?

Translation, lane movement was not frozen. Lane movement is pay received for earning college credits and degrees. This freeze exemption was not reported by the District or newspapers. The public had to

1. deduce by the language in the the press release that lane movement was not frozen, which of course requires prior knowledge as to what a lane movement is in the first place, or
2. compare this collective bargaining agreement to the prior years – except the prior years collective bargaining agreement is taken off the website once the new one is placed on the web site.

Not to be overlooked, prior to this collective bargaining agreement, there was no limitation on the maximum # of hours per semester; now it’s limited to 6. And previously, the courses were not required to be transferable to a masters degree program (thus it could be an array of Mickey Mouse classes). Not that all such classes are Mickey Mouse, but let’s be realistic.

Yet the District had to cut B team middle school sports, some teaching aides, some teachers, and more, due to “lack of funding.”

What was frozen? Well, teachers in this district previously were allowed TWO lane movements per year.

The step increase (years of service) was frozen for 2010-11 but not 2011-12.

The base salary schedule was frozen for 2010-11, but receives a 1% increase for 2011-12.

I am in Wheaton Warrenville Consolidated Unit School District 200. CUSD 200.

So this is an example of what happens in a consolidated district. The AVERAGE salary in our District is $75,000 – $80,000 per year.

Let’s talk about that 6% increase which occurs the last four years of the teachers career. I have mention this before.

This is called pension spiking, because it causes an underfunded pension.

Guess what is the single largest shortfall in the State of IL budget?

Underfunded TRS teacher/administrative pensions.

In June 2005, Senate Bill 27 (Public Act 94-0004) was passed.

This required districts to pay the actuarial cost of pension increases resulting from salary increases above 6 percent.

Before June 2005, the threshold was 20%.

So while 6% is more financially prudent than 20% annual increase, it still causes an underfunded pension.

Public Act 94-0004 should be modified.

Instead of money going to educate children, money is going fund, underfunded pensions, caused by districts’ 6% pension spiking pay hikes last 4 years of teachers’/administrators’ careers.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on and on.

When Asst Superintendents in our district retire, the District pays their healthcare benefits for 5 years, even though their pensions are often over $100,000.

Yet we don’t have money for the above cuts I mentioned.

The system is completely dysfunctional and unaffordable and it’s a travesty. The system does not need more tax dollars.

The system needs to re-allocate the way tax dollars are being spent.

The politicians know what changes need to be made to benefit the public.

They don’t do so because the teachers and teachers unions would not support their re-election.

What can the public do?

Educate your friends.

Go to school board meetings.

Look at the Collective Bargaining Agreement and Administrative Compensation Report on your Districts website (required to be there by law).

Contact your state legislators.