As Major League Baseball enters the postseason, school boards and
administrators in Nebraska need to prepare for an event of a different sort.
School boards should be using October to get ready to negotiate contracts
with their local teachers' unions. Boards of education, administrators, and
teachers should move quickly to work through the negotiations process for
the 2016-17 school year.
The Nebraska education community is growing more comfortable with the
statutory timelines for negotiations, but it is still worthwhile to review the
dates. Board and teacher associations are obligated to begin negotiations
for the 2016-17 contract year by November 1, 2015. This year November 1 st
falls on a Sunday, so we are urging boards to schedule their first
negotiations session no later than the week of October 26. You have only
until February 8 th (100 days from November 1 st ) to finish negotiations. This
means that if you have your school board meetings on the second Monday of
the month, you could wait until your February board meeting to have a draft
agreement ready for board approval. We believe the better practice is to
have the proposed agreement ready for submission to the board at its
regular January board meeting. If the board and association cannot reach
agreement by February 8 th , they must be ready to submit the matter to a
resolution officer.
Recommendations. With all this in mind, we recommend the following:
Beat the Negotiation Deadline. We strongly encourage boards to
conclude negotiations and have a tentative agreement in place no
later than the scheduled winter break and to ratify the agreement at
the regular January board meeting. Why the urgency? The 100 day
time period includes the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's
breaks.
Review Your Entire Negotiated Agreement. Sometimes boards of
education focus on base salary to the detriment of other important
issues. This is the perfect time of year to review your entire contract
for provisions which are poorly-written, unclear, or unwise. Few
school district cases go to the Commission of Industrial Relations, but
we deal with the negative effects of poorly-worded collective
bargaining provisions every day. The Nebraska State Education
Association has very strategically focused on bargaining issues like
paid time off and unlimited prior experience across the state. School
boards who are not aware of the unintended consequences of these
sorts of provisions can agree to include them in their agreement only
to regret that decision later.
Conduct a Comparability Study. We encourage boards to use a
comparability study as part of the negotiations process. A
comparability study allows the board to negotiate from a position of
power and knowledge rather than guesswork and emotion. If your
school district ever goes before a resolution officer or the CIR, a
comparability study will serve as the basis for determining the
ultimate resolution. Nebraska law requires boards of education to pay
their teachers between 98 and 102 percent of the midpoint of their
array. Boards have no way of knowing if they are hitting this
benchmark from year to year if they do not periodically perform a
formal comparability study.
If you have questions or if you do not believe your school district will be able
to comply with these deadlines, you need to obtain professional advice
promptly. We recommend that you consult with your school district’s
attorney or call Karen, Steve, or Bobby.