Whitefish Bay Will Not Extend Teacher Contracts

The Whitefish Bay School Board will not extend teacher contracts before Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill takes effect, meaning teachers will lose their collective bargaining agreement with the district.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has , and the bill is set to be published on June 29. If the current teacher contract is not extended by that date, it would expire and the union would lose the ability to bargain anything other than salary.

Instead of a collective bargaining agreement, teachers would be employed with individual contracts, similar to those of administrators.

Mark Yanisch, president of the Whitefish Bay Education Association teachers union, said he hoped to reopen the current contract, which would give the union a voice on contract language. He said an extended contract would solidify grievance procedures and other contract terms that have been developed over the years. The contract also expressly gives the union the right to consult policy changes in the district, he said.

“These are provisions that serve both the union and the district well and keep Whitefish Bay a desirable place to work,” Yanisch said. “It ensures a good contract on both sides.”

The union's proposal, first presented in April, included concessions similar to the pension and insurance contributions mandated under the budget repair bill. The only financial leverage the union has is a salary increase that reflects the consumer price index, and Yanisch said the union’s proposal was within that margin.

The teachers union and the School Board began negotiations late last month, and Human Resources Director Mark Kapocius said the board will continue to negotiate with the union after the budget repair bill becomes law. He said many of the terms of employment will stay the same for teachers, even though they won’t have collective bargaining powers.

“Even without a contract, many of the benefits they’ve grown accustomed to will stay intact,” Kapocius said. “We are trying to minimize the effect of the law change on teachers, and we think we’ve been successful in that.”

Now that the bill is inching toward becoming law, district officials are implementing many of the pension and insurance changes mandated under the legislation. Teachers benefits and conditions of employment will be spelled out in an employee handbook, which are prepared every year for administrators and support staff but not teachers.

Despite the budget repair bill’s limitations on unions, Yanisch said the union would continue to provide teachers with a legal right to representation. Without a union, the budget repair bill would allow school districts to raise the total base salary of all employees by the consumer price index, and then distribute the increase unequally among employee groups, Yanisch said.

“If we are a union, we negotiate how that money is spread out to ensure all employees are treated equitably,” he said.

Proposed Budget Moves Forward Without Layoffs

Facing an estimated $2.1 million loss in state aid, district officials had banked on the passage of the budget repair bill during their budget development process.

The Department of Public Instruction has not released the actual amount of state aid Whitefish Bay will receive yet, but Shawn Yde, the district's director of business services, said he budgeted for a more than 10 percent decrease, which is the maximum amount allowable under state law.

Under the district’s proposed budget, which was unanimously approved for publication at a June 8 meeting, taxes would drop $42 per household, with an overall levy decrease of $273,904 since last year. At the same time, the district would only see a net decrease of 0.6 full time employment positions. The proposed budget is nearly identical to .

Yde said he estimates the actual levy will come in at a decrease of $300,000 to $500,000 from last year.

The $2.1 million loss in state aid would be offset, in large part, by a 4.8 percent cut in salary and benefit costs that totals roughly $1.5 million. The cuts primarily come through salary freezes, increased employee contributions to pension costs and health insurance plan design changes allowed under the budget repair bill.

Without the passage of the budget repair bill, the district would have had to lay off teachers. If the high court’s ruling hadn’t come by the end of June, the district would have had to issue layoff notifications to meet its July 1 notification deadline.

“This eliminates the uncertainty that was there previously,” Yde said. “It is a lot better to have certainty than not have certainty.”