Trend expected to end as economy continues to sour
Fewer schools starting year with unresolved teacher contracts
For the second year in a row, the number of school districts across the state beginning the new school year with unresolved teacher contracts has dropped — from 54 last year to 47 — a trend that may be coming to an end as the economy falters.
Western New York has seven contract negotiations at impasse. Buffalo stands out as the district with the longest unresolved contract. That pact expired in June of 2004.
“Now the economy’s becoming much more unstable,” said Anthony Zumbolo, executive director of the New York State Public Employment Relations Board. “We would expect [the number of] impasses to increase.”
Other Western New York districts without new contracts are Cleveland Hill, North Tonawanda, Chautauqua Lake, Frewsburg, Warsaw and Orleans- Niagara Board of Cooperative Educational Services.
Three of the districts are entering their third year without a new contract: Cleveland Hill, Chautauqua Lake and Orleans-Niagara BOCES.
Phil Rumore, president of the Buffalo Teachers Federation, said city schoolteachers are beginning their fifth school year without a new contract, in part, because the city control board’s mandate has made contract resolution difficult: Any increases in spending have to be offset by cuts.
“You have to, in effect, pay for your own raises,” he said.
The general decline in contract agreement impasses of the past two years may come from a greater preponderance of multiyear contracts, Zumbolo said. Negotiations also may include more creative solutions to what he said has become a more challenging issue than wages — health insurance.
Some districts report to PERB that they have resolved conflicts over health insurance by choosing one carrier instead of offering a selection, he said.
The move to a single carrier was included in the Clarence district contract approved by the school board in July. Negotiations started in January and finished before the school year ended in June.
That was in contrast to that district’s previous deal, which expired before another could be agreed on, said John Ptak, director of personnel for the Clarence district.
This year the poor economy may have helped negotiations along, he said. People understood the need to save money and use a single health insurance company. “They were more willing to accept that,” Ptak said.
The approximately 700 school and BOCES districts statewide are part a public employee system that has about 4,700 collective bargaining agreements. PERB serves the group by dispatching some of its 150 freelance mediators when needed.
