Ann Arbor school board approves agreement with teachers union that will save district $5.3M

The agreement, approved by a 4-to-1 margin by the district’s teachers last week, was ratified by the school board Wednesday night.

In return for those concessions, the district agreed to recall all 191 teachers who received layoff notices earlier this school year. Recall notices will be sent out on Thursday or Friday, district officials said.

“I give a lot of credit to the employees for stepping up and helping the district out,” Superintendent Todd Roberts said.

Superintendent Todd Roberts credited the union for coming to an agreement with the district.

The district is projecting a $20 million budget shortfall for next school year. The school board recently adopted a $180-million-plus budget for next year that eliminated 90 teaching positions, among other cuts. But under this agreement, only 50 teaching positions will be cut, and those will be covered with retirements.

Teachers union President Brit Satchwell said the union recognized the district’s budget problems and wanted to do its part to solve them.

“It keeps programs from being cut further,” Satchwell said. “It maintains a lot of the richness of the programs that’s been the hallmark of the Ann Arbor school district. We get to keep our new hires, and you need that new blood coming in.

“So much of this is good for everyone. This contract recognizes the immediate needs. It also allows us to get away from the negotiating table and back to doing what we’re here to do - working with students. It allows us to plan and to teach.

"Our students and our district were the only winner. There were no ultimate losers.

"Both teams put students first by being surgical rather than using the meat cleave approach."

The agreement does not cut the salary scale for teachers, a key for union members.

Instead, the teachers agree to work their usual 181 days, but will only get paid for 177 days. The four unpaid days will generate more than $2.2 million in savings for the district.

Teachers will be able to hold onto two of those days as personal business days. After five years pass, they can either use them or cash them in at their pay rate at that time. No more than 150 can be cashed in by all the teachers combined each year, district administrators said.

Union President Brit Satchwell said the union wanted to do its part to solve the district's budget problems.

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

Teachers also agreed to partial freezes in step pay increases for the next two years. Under the terms of the agreement, teachers who are working their way up the step ladder - which moves a teacher up in salary each year worked until a maximum is reached - will stay frozen on the previous year’s step for ¾ of the school year.

For example, a teacher on step 1 this school year would remain on step 1 until the 2010-11 school year was ¾ complete. Then, that teacher would be on step 2 until the 2011-12 school year was ¾ done. At the start of the 2012-13 school year, the teacher would go right to step 3.

The district is also cutting supplemental pay, which teachers earn for activities like being the newspaper advisor or the head football coach. Those salaries will be cut 5 percent in the 2010-11 school year for a savings of around $90,000.

More than $200,000 in additional savings in supplemental salaries will be implemented in 2011-12. Those cuts will be more targeted and could include eliminating positions.

The contract also calls for a cap on how much the district will pay toward each teacher’s health care. Under the current agreement, any increase in the cost of health benefits is split between the district and the teacher. The agreement says it will now all be on the teacher. The district currently pays $12,582.13 per teacher in benefits.

The district anticipates about $1.3 million in savings from that change, district administrators said.

All those changes will help the district stabilize its budget, Roberts and Deputy Superintendent for Operations Robert Allen said.

“This will really help us in our planning for each year,” Allen said. “We’ll know where we’re going to be. It also saves the disruption that layoffs would cause.”

The district is not making a no layoffs guarantee for the 2011-12 school year. Instead, it has agreed to create a pool into which 10 teachers facing layoffs would be placed. Those 10 teachers would remain district employees and would fill in when openings popped up during the course of the school year.

In exchange for the cuts, the teachers are expected to see $4.5 million of new money, but it can’t be spent unless the district is doing well, Satchwell said.

According to the agreement, teachers will see that money if the district has a fund balance of greater than 10 percent of its total budget and its total revenue goes up year-to-year, when grants, gifts and the like are subtracted out. The teachers would receive 70 percent of the increase, meaning if the revenues increased by $1 million, the teachers would get $700,000. They can choose what to do with it - for example, apply it to the salary scale or put it toward health care costs.

Once the district has paid the teachers back $4.5 million, the contract expires, and a new one has to be negotiated. There are no time limits set on how long the contract will be in place.

"This is a leap of faith on both our parts," school board President Deb Mexicotte said. "As Brit said, where else has anyone done this? The fact that not everything in it is perfect for either side makes it perfect."

The contract also sets the calendar for the next two school years. District administrators said they followed the county’s common calendar, and breaks are set for their usual times.

In approving it, school board members praised the union and district administrators for the contract.

"It was carefully done, it was respectfully done," said board Vice-President Irene Patalan. "People could have been stubborn, then where would we have been?"

David Jesse covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at davidjesse@annarbor.com or at 734-623-2534.