It’s been almost eight months since contract negotiations kicked off between the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District and its two largest employee unions. This month the district proposed financial packages that cover employee raises and health insurance. The district offer kicks off a key component of negotiations, but it’s clear there’s still work to be done.
The proposals are significantly lower than what was requested by the unions. But the district says the offers are realistic given the district’s financial constraints.
Michael Caulfield is the lawyer representing the school district’s bargaining team. He said his team was waiting to see how state funding shook out before negotiating salaries and benefits.
“When it comes to money, the money is finite at the district,” he said earlier this month. “There's a set amount of money that the district has, and that's what we have available.”
For both the teachers’ union and the support staff union, the district is proposing a three year contract that includes a 2.5% pay raise the first year and a 1% pay raise for each of the next two years. That’s less than what the two unions asked for.
Caulfield says the offers build on one-year contracts ratified last year. Those contracts included a 3.5% raise for certified employees like teachers, represented by the Kenai Peninsula Education Association, and a 6% raise for support staff, represented by the Kenai Peninsula Educational Support Association, plus a bump to the district’s per-employee healthcare contribution.
“We’re talking about – around $2.5 million that the district has available and then the union proposals, which are close to $27 million," he said. "So there’s obviously a big gap there.”
Caulfield says the school board approved $2,365,980 to spend on contract negotiations. That amount was negotiated by school board members in closed-door meetings. It’s about a tenth of the value of what the unions are asking for in raises and health care, roughly $27 million altogether.
The two unions are bargaining separately. But both teams say the district’s proposal isn’t enough.
Derek Ratliff is a teacher at Aurora Borealis Charter School and is on the teachers’ unions negotiating team. He says teachers may not find the district’s offer so appealing.
“The flip side of that is if the contract isn’t good enough, as we lost 20% of our teaching staff already, what’s to say that next year’s not going to be another 20?” he said.
The school district support staff union has already given the district a counter proposal. It asks for eight percent – rather than two-and-a-half percent – raises. Susanna Litwiniak is the president of the support staff union. She says their counter offer is an attempt to catch employee pay up with inflation.
“We're all here to do the work of getting to a place where we can agree and work together,” she said. “I want to be clear that as we present our counterproposal today, we are earnestly trying to find a middle ground, while also acknowledging that we have many members who are currently not making a living wage.”
Since swapping contracts in February, the two sides have focused on non-financial contract items – like layoff notice deadlines and sick leave policies. That was due to ongoing uncertainty about how much money the district would have to spend on negotiations. Earlier this month, school board members finalized budget decisions, which made clearer how much the district bargaining team has to work with.
But Caulfield says big asks from the two unions could force more cuts.
“We don’t want to run the district into a situation where we are running huge deficits and potentially teachers have to be laid off,” he said.
The contracts’ financial components are separate from a slew of other language changes still being hashed out. All three groups are scheduled to meet again next month. Any contract changes approved by the negotiating teams are subject to approval by union membership.
