Hinsdale-Clarendon Hills Teachers' Association
www.hchta.org
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WelcomeHinsdale-Clarendon Hills Teachers’ Association Judy Tiggelar's Statement to the District 181 Board of Education September 8, 2008 Good Evening, On September 2nd the teachers of District 181 were in negotiations with the Board of Education from 6 pm until 2 am. It was late into session when the Board made a proposal that would significantly alter the salary index forever. Through the mediator the teachers were told to take this offer to our members, that the Board was done talking. The teachers were prepared to continue to meet and had a counter offer prepared and ready to hand to the Board. The Board has refused to hear the offer. Instead, at approximately 4 pm on September 3rd, the Board chose to send their offer to all employees of District 181 and the local press. The Board has chosen to violate a basic guideline of negotiating to keep the talks confidential until both parties are prepared to make a public statement. So here we are. The Board has decided to take the talks public, but they don’t want to talk to the teachers. That makes it kind of difficult to reach an agreement when one side does not want to talk to the other. Today, the teachers are prepared to give their response to the Board. Colleagues, Do you accept the Board’s proposal of Article 5.1 to slash the salary index in half? Colleagues, Do you want the Board and Association to continue meet in order to reach a fair and equitable settlement? The teachers are available to meet. All we need is for the board to agree to meet. So many of you in the audience are probably wondering what was so wrong with the offer the Board made that the teachers would so soundly reject it. Let me explain. 1. The Board proposal is not a move to condense the salary index. It is literally cutting off the index points from years 18 through 35. By doing this, the Board is suggesting that the teachers should agree to permanently reduce their potential lifetime earnings. 2. The offer of a 3.35% increase for those teachers in what would be called longevity is good for only three years. After that all future groups negotiating would be forced to bargain an increase on the base salary for younger teachers and a longevity increase for more senior teachers. This sets up a system that is divisive and not conducive to a team atmosphere. 3. The lack of thought that went into the Board’s last minute proposal is evident. There are unanswered questions related to their proposal. What happens to teachers in the longevity area that are taking courses to enhance their content knowledge and instructional skills? Does that teacher who might be at step 20 go back up to step 17? It’s a shame the Board won’t talk to us. The Board is now claiming that it needs to be fiscally responsible. Well they are a little late to the party on that one. When they are paying the salary of four superintendents, it is hard to be fiscally responsible. Let’s add it all up; when you combine the salaries of Curley, Sabatino and Ticknor, you have roughly $576,000 in superintendent salaries and then there’s Tenbusch. There’s no telling what he’s costing the district. The Board is paying two people to do the job of the Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources for an additional cost of $60,000. The Board has hired PMA to figure out their financial profile when they were already paying a business manager to do that very job. So now the Board is moving onto business manager number 9 or 10. It is hard to keep track; they come and go so fast in the last 8 years. It’s no wonder the community questions the Board’s ability to be fiscally responsible when they can’t keep someone in the business office more than a year. The Board has chosen to pay a consultant $10 more per hour than it would have cost to hire a teacher to do the very same job. That’s just looking at administrative positions. It does not even take into account the amount of money that was thrown at technology last year and look at where we are with that mess. So when you add up all of the duplication of administrative positions, that is roughly the dollar amount the teachers and board differ in settling this contract. The Board erroneously claims in their press release of September 3rd, that the salaries listed in the release include the Board’s contribution to the teachers retirement fund. Let me read from the Contract Article 6.3 “The Board shall deduct and send to the Illinois Teachers' Retirement System (TRS) the percentage of each teacher's Appendix B salary, as defined and required by TRS, to be applied to the TRS retirement account of such teacher.” How can they claim to pay for our retirement contribution when it shows up as a deduction from our checks every month? Once again, they just don’t get it right. The teachers are prepared to meet to work out the final details of the contract. There is absolutely no reason why we can not reach a fair and equitable settlement.
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