Reprinted with permission from the Waconia Patriot
By Al Lohman
Halfway through the school year, Waconia Public Schools has reached a two-year contract agreement with its teachers. The announcement was made last Tuesday, Jan. 14, following extensive contract negotiations.
Negotiation teams for School District 110 and the Waconia Education Association met a total of 16 times over the past year to hammer out an agreement that both parties are calling “acceptable, but not what they wanted.” The contract agreement covers the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years.
The primary challenge in the latest round of negotiations was the school district’s current financial condition. The district is in statutory operating debt primarily due to shortfalls in state funding, particularly with regard to rising special education costs. And the WEA made several concessions in the latest contract in respect to district’s financial position, teachers, administrators and school board members acknowledged.
The concessions and key components of the agreement are as follows:
- The teacher salary schedule will be increased by one-half of one percent in April 2020 and anther half percent in September 2020.
- Teacher compensation increases that recognize years of experience will be reduced and delayed in both years of the agreement.
- The District will match rising health insurance premiums beginning in March of 2020.
The contract also comes with a retirement incentive for eligible teachers. The intent of that clause is to address the district’s financial situation by providing an additional compensation for longer-term higher paid teachers to consider retirement.
The WEA voted to ratify the tentative contract agreement on Friday, Jan. 10, and the District 110 School Board approved the proposed agreement at its meeting Monday, Jan. 13 on a 4-1 vote.
Board member John Weinand said he couldn’t vote by law because his wife works in the district and Cathy Thom was unable to make the meeting due to illness. Mike Bullis cast the no vote, expressing concerns about a retirement incentive clause in the new contract, saying “I don’t think this contract will help the district or teachers” and that rather than gambling on the severance package he would rather see the money in the contract going to teachers continuing to work in the district.
Two teachers also spoke at last week’s board meeting, expressing concerns about the contract they had just ratified, questioning how the district got into its current financial position and if teachers could “be caught in belt-tightening year after year.”
Board members also expressed frustration at the current situation and appreciation to teachers for their accommodations and service
Sonja Sailer, district director of Human Resources thanked teachers and negotiating teams working on the contract “for an acceptable result, not the result anybody wanted,” but one that acknowledged current conditions.”
“We knew that this contract negotiation process would be a difficult one because of the financial position that ISD 110 is currently facing,” said Superintendent Pat Devine. “We knew that we were unable to create a contract that would meet normal expectations of our teachers and that we would be asking for teachers to take less to help us get through our financial hardship. The WEA has been amazing and are truly showing how much they care about ISD 110.”
Devine said he was also impressed with the collaborative process to get to a contract settlement.
He indicated it’s premature to talk about the next contract “because we do not know what the state of the school district’s finances will be at that time” and said, “It is my hope that we will be in a different position in the future so agreements can better reflect their great work.”
In the meantime, meetings with the district’s nine remaining employee groups are scheduled to begin this month.
“Knowing that we have limited resources, it is our plan to treat all employees with similar, lower than normal, settlements,” Devine said. “It is not where we want to be because we have amazing staff at ISD 110 and we value them immensely.