February 7, 2019
This statement was read by Board of Education President Ken Puccio at the February 7, 2019 Board of Education Meeting.
This evening the Board would like to provide the community with a detailed update regarding negotiations between the Perth Amboy Board of Education and the Perth Amboy American Federation of Teachers or AFT.
The AFT leadership issued a statement last month entitled “Urgent Negotiations Update,” which was immediately brought to the attention of the Board and the administration due to its highly inflammatory nature. It unjustly criticized me, the Board Attorney and our Board of Education Vice-President, Tashi Vazquez. Both Ms. Vazquez and I are highly well-respected members of this community, work for the City of Perth Amboy and volunteer so much of our time to this District.
The statement was inaccurate, unprofessional, personal and mean-spirited. This Board will not respond in kind. But we do want to provide the community with a status of the negotiations with straight-forward facts. The Board committee and the AFT have met no less than 19 times since November 2017 to attempt to negotiate the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement. The AFT’s refused to sign-off on basic ground rules, but the Board continued to negotiate in good faith for next year and a half.
Despite the number of negotiations sessions, the Board and the AFT have not yet reached a settlement with respect to a successor agreement. On January 11, 2019, the Board of Education filed for “Impasse.” Impasse is not a negative process, but a positive one provided to the Board and the AFT at no cost. It is a request to the Public Employees Relations Committee, known as PERC, to assign an experienced neutral individual to assist the parties in reaching a settlement.
It is UNFAIR to our hardworking staff to have a contract open for so long. For reasons we will discuss here, we do not believe a settlement can be reached in the absence of mediation. The Board committee and the AFT are scheduled to meet with the mediator on February 21, 2019. The Board is hoping for a swift resolution that evening.
The parties have reached tentative agreements on many items, benefiting teaching staff members, custodians, secretaries, technology support staff, security personnel and paraprofessionals.
Tentative agreements include:
• Over 50 agreed upon language changes.
• Expansion of bereavement leave
• Dual Language stipends to our staff totaling over $200,000 per each year of the contract
• Additional hourly increase for our food service workers, above and beyond an agreed upon settlement.
• New and increased stipends for extracurricular activities
HEALTH BENEFITS. Note that where many school districts and teachers’ unions across the state are at impasse over health benefits, this is not the case here in Perth Amboy. The Board agreed to significantly reduce employee’s health contributions to the equivalent of Tier II contribution rates three years ago beginning with the 2015-2018 contract. This is virtually unheard of now, much less 3 years ago. Even in 2015, the Board wanted to ensure that our staff had access to excellent health care plans at the lowest possible cost. Although most districts are fighting to keep employee health care contributions at the highest possible level, this Board reduced them 3 years ago and didn’t even put a proposal on the table to increase those contributions in this round of negotiations.
The lower contributions from the staff means less money that the District now has to offset the costs of rising health insurance. So, while it is favorable to staff, it lessens the budgeted revenue and means that money is taken away from education and put towards the payment of health benefits. But let me be clear, THE BOARD IS SEEKING NO CHANGES TO HEALTH BENEFITS. This is in line with this Board’s mission to retain and reward its hardworking staff.
In addition to school holidays, 10-12 sick days per year, and 3 personal days, the current contract provides each staff member with an additional three (3) non-cumulative days that can be used for any reason. The days were IN FACT added to the last contract in good faith with the agreement of both parties. Unfortunately, such days have been extremely detrimental to the school district, its staff and students.
The number of teachers absent daily is extraordinarily high and unprecedented. This has compromised our student’s education and in some instances the safety and welfare of the students and staff in the buildings. We will absolutely become a high performing school district, but this requires the dedication and consistency of OUR teachers in the classroom, not substitutes. This Board wants to ensure that OUR teachers, who we value tremendously, are in the classroom with OUR students. We need to minimize the use of substitutes and are willing to compensate our teachers with significantly above average salary increases in exchange for the elimination of these days.
For example,
• on December 20, 2018, we had 259 staff members out of approximately 1860 employees, or 14% of our staff.
• On January 18, 2019, we had 234 staff members absent or 13% of our staff.
• Last spring, the number of staff members out approached nearly the 400 mark, 395 to be exact, which accounted for an absence rate by our staff of approximately 21.50%.
This is extremely alarming. How are we as a District to have the students learn and achieve with these many teachers absent? How are we as a District to ensure the safety of the students and other staff with these many teachers absent? How are we to achieve the goal of a high performing school district with these many teachers absent? The non-cumulative days, although well intended, compromise absolutely everything this District, this community, this Board and this administration strive for.
According to the data maintained by the New Jersey School Board’s Association, the Middlesex County average salary increases are 3.16%, 3.12% and 3.14%. The average salary increase in the State of New Jersey for teaching staff members is approximately 3.00%. These rates include significant health care givebacks and the highest employee contribution rates for health benefits. Again, this Board has not proposed any health care benefit changes and AFT members are paying one of the lowest contributions toward health care in the entire State of New Jersey. Despite no health care giveback, the Board’s current offer is significantly higher than the county and state averages and includes hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional stipends above and beyond any proposed salary increase. Yes, I did say significantly higher than state and county averages which are teetering around 3%!
The Board’s current offer increases salaries in the amounts of 3.25%, 3.33%, and 3.33% for the three years of the agreement, which equates to an increase of 9.91%. In addition to a 9.91% over three years, the Board agreed to hundred-thousands of dollars in stipends for dual language staff and in addition offered stipends to our counselors, Child Study Team and Nurses totaling over $186,000 year – which brings this settlement to near 4% per year!
We are at a complete loss as to why this contract remains unsettled. The deal currently on the table for the AFT’s consideration is tremendous, extremely generous and unequivocally demonstrates this Board’s commitment to its staff.
I cannot stress enough that this Board of Education and its administration believe in this District and its staff. We just detailed how much we want to work with the AFT. Community members, parents and staff members should be confident that this Board of Education remains committed to all Board employees, staff and the students, not only in the short-term, but in the long-term. This contract needs to be settled now! The Board’s Negotiations Team is looking forward to February 21st.
Thank you.
