Florida officials blame unions as thousands of teachers still await raises

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Superintendent Addison Davis made no apologies for why teachers in the Hillsborough County School District have yet to get their share of the state’s $800 million allocation for raises.

The district has worked diligently to come up with a plan to pay educators more while staying within our financial limits, Davis told the State Board of Education on Wednesday. His administration meets regularly with union leaders, Davis added, but they failed to reach an agreement.

They recently had a deadlocked hearing and expect a registered order by mid-February.

The union is the bargaining agent, Davis told the council, which was meeting in Fernandina Beach. They are the ones we have to go through to negotiate salary packages.

Superintendents from seven other school districts shared similar stories with the board, which called them in to explain their delay in pouring money into teachers’ pockets, as Chairman Tom Grady said. District leaders as large as Broward and as small as Gadsden said their offers were not accepted by the unions.

That’s why they missed the October 1 deadline to submit an approved wage distribution plan to the state.

Sounds like blackmail to me, Grady said after hearing Volusia County Superintendent Carmen Balgobin detail how her district’s teachers’ union refused to negotiate the school’s pay raise award. State separately from other contractual issues.

He and other board members argued there had to be a way for them to put teeth behind the Oct. 1 deadline, perhaps by setting rules more strictly enforcing the requirements. Grady asked if districts could give raises to non-union members while union members wait for negotiations to conclude.

Board member Esther Byrd said she felt the solution lay in taking the decision on raises out of the hands of the teachers’ unions. She suggested allowing independent hearing officers to allocate the money if districts can’t, and also called on parents to lean on teachers to accept offers from their districts. .

The more we can engage the public in this conversation, the more we can pressure people to act and act quickly, Byrd said, adding that she hopes lawmakers will hear board discussions and do something. something to reduce the power of the unions.

Leaders of teachers’ unions disputed the councils’ perspective, which they saw as part of a wider attack on their organisations.

What the Council of State should focus on is, what are we doing to bring teachers into our schools? Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar said, noting that the state’s teaching vacancy rate has increased nearly 200 percent in five years. Instead of slandering teachers and their representatives, they should work with us to solve this problem.

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Spar argued that veteran teachers view the state salary plan as favoring the entry salary and that they are unwilling to settle for earning little more than a first-grade educator and below. what had been announced on the salary scales years ago.

Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association president Rob Kriete said that was the reason his district was at an impasse.

It’s to get what teachers have already accrued and get paid accordingly, he said. We vehemently disapprove of the idea that we are the problem.

Spar pointed out that the vast majority of school districts have completed their negotiations and paid the raises. This fact was not lost on State Council member Joe York, who recommended that the council bring in some of these superintendents and union leaders to find out how they might meet expectations.

I would focus on the progress there and how they’ve been successful, York said.

Board member Monesia Brown said districts also need to take the issue more seriously. She noted the weeks it takes Flagler County schools to go from a negotiated deal to a pay rise.

It deserves the extra investment of time to make it happen, Brown said.

St. Johns County Superintendent Tim Forson, who has made similar presentations to the board in the past, said it was the last place I wanted to be, explaining why he couldn’t reach a pay plan at time. He and others might get another chance, though.

The council said it intended to ask leaders of districts that still have no plan to return in a few months.

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