Now that you’ve made it through the first couple weeks of school, we wanted to turn your attention to negotiations! We held Session 2 of our Superintendent Rookie and Refresher Series this week covering negotiation basics and timelines. It prompted us to remind all of you that the time is now to start preparing for negotiations. As a reminder, you can sign up for our full superintendent and/or principal series, or get access to individual series webinars (and records and materials) on an a la carte basis. You can find out more about our webinars here. If you have any questions, just let us know.
We have blogged about negotiations suggestions in the past. You can access those here and here. For now, here's a quick refresher on the timelines and the things KSB recommends to be prepared for negotiations.
NEGOTIATIONS TIMELINES
October 1st If the local association has not been certified by the CIR, the board must respond to the association’s request for recognition.
November 1st Negotiations must begin. You must conduct at least 4 negotiations sessions by February 8, unless you settle prior to the need for 4 sessions.
February 8th If the board and teachers have not reached agreement, the parties must submit to a resolution officer for fact finding and/or mediation.
March 25th * The fact finding/resolution process must be concluded.
September 15th The Commission must render its decisions.
* Negotiations, mediation, and fact finding must end on or before March 25th of the year before the contract year in question or within 25 days after the certification of state aid for the contract year in question, whichever occurs later.
OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS FOR BEING PREPARED
We also recommend you take the following steps soon, prior to the start of negotiations:
Determine your LEGAL array. “But KSB, we always use our activity conference.” “Don’t worry, we have an agreed upon array with our local union.” “Our salary is higher than everyone because of our cash-in-lieu, so our array doesn’t matter.” Yeah, we’ve heard it all. Without determining your proper array, sticking to “what you’ve always done” is the equivalent of going in blind. Even if you want to use a unique array, you should at least know your actual, legal array.
Conduct a reliable Comparability Study. For your total compensation to be considered comparable and lawful, it must be within 98-102% of the array CIR Midpoint, which is an average of the actual midpoint and mean of the total compensation within your array. If you don’t know what that means, it’s time to talk to your school attorney about a comp study or the merits of comparability software, like Northstar from NASB. If you do know what that means but haven’t done a comp study recently, it’s time to consider it.
Review your existing negotiated agreement. Doing a comp study but failing to review your negotiated agreement for unclear, unlawful, or missing key terms is the equivalent of paying your mortgage and your bills but letting the house fall into disrepair. No one is coming after you, but you could be in danger without even knowing it. If it’s been awhile (or has never happened…), it’s time to go through your negotiated agreement and/or ask for a review from your legal counsel.
Review other school districts' contracts within your array. Outside of salary and benefits, what you may be required to include or could take out of your current agreement comes down to “prevalence” analysis. If a certain practice is prevalent within your array, you may be ordered to follow it (like a sick leave bank...yuck). Without reviewing the negotiated agreements of schools within your array, you can’t possibly know what’s prevalent. We’ve been saying it for years--make 2021 the year you actually do it!
We hope these are helpful reminders for you now that negotiations season is only 7 weeks and 2 board meetings away. If you have any questions, contact your district’s legal counsel if you don’t work with KSB or shoot us an email to ksb@ksbschoollaw.com. Better yet, Mrs. Shari Russell is THE person to contact to talk comparability, so drop her a line (shari@ksbschoollaw.com) or give her a call (402-804-8000)!