Fact-finder selects school's offer

A state-appointed fact-finder has recommended the adoption of the Jay School Corporation’s last best offer as the new master contract for the Jay Classroom Teachers Association.
Fact-finder James E. Hoehne’s “recommended order” is subject to appeal within 30 days. If no appeal is submitted to the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board within that timeframe, the recommended order becomes the final contract.
“We’ll look to move on,” said Jay Schools superintendent Tim Long this morning. “This is part of the process. I want to compliment the teachers on their professionalism during the process.”
“Our legal team is still looking at it,” said JCTA president Paul Szymczak. “We’re taking this as another step in the process.”
Hoehne, a longtime labor relations attorney from LaPorte, agreed with the school corporation’s contention that the JCTA’s last best offer would result in deficit financing at a time when school finances have been declining.
The Jay Schools last best offer called for an additional $200,000 for teacher salaries, while the JCTA’s last best offer called for $512,000.
“Deficit financing is the major concern in selecting an LBO,” the fact-finder wrote. “School corporations are businesses and like private sector businesses, they must plan for the future. … If there is no plan to handle the unexpected, then the corporation (business) is relying on chance and luck to get through — a very poor position to take.”
Rejecting the JCTA’s last best offer, he wrote, “It appears that the goal of the association is to use as much available funds as possible to support a salary increase … This sounds like a demand for whatever funds are available without regard to any revenue or expenditure estimates or projections, no matter how well documented.”
While he expressed sympathy with teachers facing higher health insurance costs and small pay increases, he added, “being employed by a school corporation being run without regard to financial plans or projections would be an even worse scenario for them.”
Hoehne limited his recommendation only to issues of salary and wages and did not include questions over new hire language, grievance procedure, job sharing, removal of assistant coaches from the bargaining unit or the number of pay periods.
He rejected arguments put forth by JCTA attorney Eric Hylton at a Nov. 5 hearing that the Jay Schools last best offer was illegal because it didn’t include a salary schedule.
“The collective bargaining requirements and regulations for contracts under the jurisdiction of IEERB have been and are changing drastically and quickly,” Hoehne wrote. “By-gone reliance on things such as traditional salary schedules will be … a thing of the past. The amount of salary and wage information that a school corporation will be required to keep track of at any given time will be increasing exponentially once all school corporations have their various teacher evaluation methods in place. The day of line item salary schedules reflecting a number of teachers at any given level is coming to an end.”
Hoehne filed his recommendation Monday. Jay Schools and the JCTA received it Tuesday afternoon.[[In-content Ad]]