Saunders

MARQUETTE — The Marquette Area Public Schools Board of Education has authorized the filing of an unfair labor practice charge against the Marquette Area Education Association regarding department head stipends.

The dispute stems from a cost-cutting measure.

In a telephone interview with The Mining Journal, MAPS Superintendent Bill Saunders said a $1.4 million deficit budget had been forecast for the school district in June.

The board, he said, then tasked him with making cuts so the general fund wouldn’t be affected.

The budget was adopted June 30 with a $600,000 deficit, but the district continues to move forward, he said.

Saunders said the district will have more detailed numbers when the budget is amended in December, but it most likely will operate at a deficit, with money coming from the general fund balance.

“We still have a healthy fund balance,” said Saunders, noting it stands at $5 million.

His plan, he said, was to cut $800,000, with the goal to take as little out of the classrooms as possible. Reductions included removing inkjet printers, which created an expense of $40,000 on cartridges, and moving graduation from Lakeview Arena back to Marquette Senior High School for a savings of $15,000.

Attempts also have been made to reduce sick and professional development days to reduce the number of substitute teachers needed in the district, and to combine bus routes for efficiency.

Another decision — the point of contention with the MAEA — was to not fill department head positions at Marquette Senior High School and Bothwell Middle School.

Saunders said the union later filed an unfair labor practice charge; since the positions were eliminated, the department heads were not being asked to perform duties and be paid stipends. Those stipends would have totaled $36,000.

Saunders said that because of the district’s filing of an unfair labor practice charge against the MAEA, a hearing will be held, although none has yet been scheduled.

MAEA President Fred Cole, an MSHS social studies teacher who also teaches Advanced Placement U.S. Government, issued this MAEA statement:

“We have not engaged in unfair labor practices. Actually, the MAPS Board has.”

He provided some background to this dispute via email.

In June when the school board voted to take work from BMS and MSHS department heads and to have principals and secretaries take over some of those duties, the board violated both the contract to which it had agreed and Michigan labor law by giving that work to administrators and secretaries who are not members of the MAEA bargaining unit.

MAEA representatives, he said, met with Saunders shortly after the June vote to express the MAEA’s disagreement with that action. It filed a grievance in early July, after which the district responded.

The MAEA had further discussions with Saunders, and several teachers presented its position to an ad hoc committee of the board in August. The MAEA eventually followed the grievance process and filed for arbitration as provided by law and its contract.

“When the district’s downstate attorney threatened us with their (labor charges), we actually filed our own (charges) because the district violated Michigan labor law,” Cole wrote.

He added: “The MAEA believes that MAPS’s limited resources would also be better used to pay the department heads to provide services in their buildings that affect students and teachers, rather than continue to pay an expensive downstate attorney to continue this dispute.”

When the MAEA spoke with the ad hoc committee in August, he said it apparently convinced it of the value of at least one department head, since the high school special education department head retired this fall.

“We would simply like them to do the same for the other department heads,” Cole wrote. “We realize the district has limited resources. We aren’t just employees of this district. We are also taxpayers in this district, our children go to school in this district; we are part of this community. We believe the district should follow the contract we agreed to and follow Michigan labor law and restore these positions. Then all this controversy could go away, rather than continue to litigate this through (unfair labor practice) flings, arbitration hearings and expensive downstate attorneys.”

The board Monday also approved merit pay for teachers.

Traditionally, state law calls for merit pay, Saunders said. The board OK’d teachers being eligible for merit pay as an option for the MAEA at $56.30 for “effective” teachers and $112.60 for “highly effective” teachers.

When factoring in benefits, the costs to the school district are $75 and $150, respectively.

In collaboration with MAEA leadership, the district looked to offer financial pay versus merit day, which is a half-day for effective teachers and a full day for highly effective teachers.

“Our teachers will be able to choose which option they like,” Saunders said.

Teachers now can elect to take a merit day, which would be like a personal day, or merit pay, a financial stipend, Saunders said.

Determining whether a teacher is effective or highly effective, he said, is based on an evaluation from the prior school year.

There are 71 effective and 133 highly effective teachers from the 2016-17 school year, according to Saunders, which amounts to over half of MAPS teachers.

Christie Bleck can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal.net.