Salary standoff sizzles in Clark County schools

In the heat and haze Tuesday, hundreds of Evergreen Public Schools teachers protested outside district administrative offices and stormed the school board meeting. It was the same story across town at the Vancouver Public Schools’ board meeting, where an estimated 400 teachers demonstrated in favor of increased wages.

It’s a scene that’s played out at school board meetings across Clark County all summer. Teachers have come wearing their bright red union T-shirts. They’ve tailgated, held picnics and stood on street corners. They’ve waved signs with slogans such as “Keep the McCleary promise,” “Bargain for salaries,” and “Only U can prevent a teacher strike.”

Yet as the first day of school draws near, the area’s school districts and their teacher unions remain at odds over raises. It’s the side effect of two years of legislation intended to fix school funding, and it’s resulted in heated collective bargaining in Clark County and across the state.

“We literally have every district at the table,” said Chris Reykdal, Washington’s superintendent of public instruction.

Union presidents have threatened strikes and protests, citing the $1 billion flowing from the Washington state Legislature earmarked for teacher salaries. That was the last piece bringing the state into compliance with the Washington Supreme Court’s 2012 McCleary school funding decision, and it has the Washington Education Association pushing districts to grant big raises.

“They’re offering us an insulting number as a raise,” said Margaret Hunter, a Covington Middle School art teacher, of Evergreen Public School’s current offer. “I’m just here to get the paycheck we worked hard for.”

But local districts maintain they simply do not have the money to meet the double-digit raises teachers are fighting for. District officials say the union’s proposals are neither feasible nor sustainable.

“We have this financial analysis, and we’re saying, ‘not a good future,’ ” said John Steach, superintendent of Evergreen Public Schools, the county’s largest district.

Not all winners

At first, school districts were cautiously optimistic that McCleary legislation would result in significant allocation increases. After all, with an additional $7.3 billion coming into the state education system over four years, as well as an additional $1 billion earmarked for salaries this year, it seemed a rosy picture.

But as the realities of the decision are playing out, Clark County administrators have described our region as worse off than other parts of the state.

According to the nonpartisan League of Education Voters, Clark County districts can expect to see increases in total state funding peaking at 15 percent in the Ridgefield School District. Vancouver Public Schools and Evergreen Public Schools will see permanent increases of 12 and 9 percent, respectively.

Some Puget Sound districts will see significantly greater increases. The Lake Washington School District will see a 29 percent increase in funding and will spend an aggregated additional 15.2 percent on salaries, according to union leadership in that district, which serves wealthy suburbs east of Seattle. According to the Washington Education Association, that equates to average raises of 12.2 percent.

Near Woodland, the Green Mountain School District is one of few in the state actually expected to lose money in the deal. Green Mountain — a one-building, K-8 district with nine teachers, 10 classified staff and an estimated 155 students expected to start out the year — might struggle in the next few years under the new state funding model, Superintendent Tyson Vogeler said.

“The intention of the legislators was good,” he said. “It’s just a very complex issue to write a formula that fairly funds 295 districts. They all have their unique qualities. It puts us in a little bit of a bind.”

As part of the new model, districts wrote budget projections for the next four years. Vogeler said Green Mountain could have to dip into its reserves to make up about $50,000 as soon as the 2019-2020 school year. According to state estimates, the district is expected to receive state funding of $12,207 per child this upcoming school year, followed by $11,690 per student in 2019-2020 and $11,980 in 2020-2021. That would give the district a loss of $150 per student in funding from the 2017-2018 school year, making Green Mountain one of five districts in the state to see a loss during that three-year period, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The McCleary decision also limited the amount districts could receive through local levies, which only deepens the issue for Green Mountain. Vogeler said the district received about $3,400 per student through levy money this past school year. The projection is that local levy amount is going to drop nearly 50 percent in the 2019-2020 school year with the new limitations.

“That decrease is not completely offset by the increases in state money,” he said.

That has the district planning to dip into reserves. Green Mountain has built its savings in the last three years, and tries to keep enough money to fund the district for 60 days. For Green Mountain, $50,000 is about 10 percent of its reserves.

Reykdal said there’s “no question” that the McCleary legislation created winners and losers. He addressed the inequities in a letter to legislators last month.

“Unfortunately, there are massive differences in opportunities across the state for compensation changes. Because of more state funds, large regionalization amounts, and even some additional resources for the new experience factor, some districts have the resources to give substantial increases within the parameters you set.”

Sustainability questioned

The result, as this summer has shown, is significant gaps between what school districts say they can afford and the raises unions are seeking. The Washington Education Association, the state teachers union, called on all member unions to fight for 15 percent raises.

Local officials say raises that high aren’t sustainable here.

Take Battle Ground Public Schools, for example. In that district, the teachers union’s proposal would result in average total salaries of $86,760 — a 30.1 percent increase from last year’s salary. Battle Ground’s offer, meanwhile, would give average salaries of $72,450, an 8.6 percent increase.

“I think educators have reached the point of saying ‘I know I’m a social worker, I know I’m a counselor, I know I’m a mentor, I know I’m all those things, but I’m also an educator and I can’t keep doing it for free,’ ” said Linda Peterson, president of the Battle Ground Education Association.

But Superintendent Mark Ross said raises at that level are not sustainable and will drive the district into a deficit. A deficit could result in significant spending cuts.

“(We would be) taking money out of curriculum, laying off staff, taking money out of maintenance,” Ross said. “We’re still going to be looking at a loss.”

Evergreen Public Schools has offered its teachers pay ranging from $50,687 to $96,044, depending on experience. In most cases, teachers would see a 7.7 percent raise. The teachers’ union, meanwhile, has proposed a pay range of $56,631 for new teachers to $96,893 for the most experienced teachers.

The district projects that accepting the union’s offer would result in a $53 million deficit by the 2021-2022 school year.

“In the resolution of McCleary, we were not winners in terms of dollar amount,” said Mike Merlino, Evergreen’s chief operating officer.

State Rep. Monica Stonier, D-Vancouver, said that districts should be spending their new dollars on teacher pay. That’s what the Legislature voted to support, and what the state Supreme Court mandated.

“There should be no question that’s intended for compensation,” Stonier said.

But that may look different from district to district, said Stonier, vice chair of the House Education Committee. In some Clark County’s districts, double-digit raises are likely unfeasible.

“I think that would be a really high bar to meet in Southwest Washington and still have a sustainable budget,” said Stonier, a former middle school teacher. “But some of the offers I’ve seen have been too low.”

What happens next

Mark Gardner, the Camas Education Association’s lead negotiator and past president, said the tense negotiations have formed a rift between the district and the union, where both sides had proudly discussed their collaborative relationship in recent years.

“We’re past the stage of dismay and disappointment,” he said. “It is becoming true anger and a sense of being disrespected by our leadership.”

Gardner said he and his fellow bargaining team members felt like they were being treated like line items in a budget, like a problem that needs to be solved.

“There’s some goodwill being burned where people are realizing maybe they’re not as valued as they thought,” he said.

Alan Adams, president-elect of the Ridgefield Education Association, said the bargaining process has been stressful for both sides.

“I think there’s going to be a need for some sort of healing after the negotiating process is done,” he said.

Adams said that’s a common feeling amongst plenty of districts in the region, as representatives from various unions around Southwest Washington have met regularly to discuss their respective negotiations and frustrations.

“We’re all in the same boat,” he said. “We’re all united.”

On Friday, Ridgefield became the first union in the county to hold a strike vote, with 97.8 percent of members present voting to approve a strike. The two sides will continue to bargain, but if no agreement is reached, the strike is scheduled to start on the first day of classes, which is Aug. 29 in Ridgefield.

District leaders fear what impact strikes may have on relationships within the district. At Evergreen, Steach said a strike vote could set the district “back years.”

“It would damage relationships,” he said. “And relationships are the life blood of a school district.”

Woodland Public Schools and the Woodland Education Association came to a new agreement on a salary schedule at their Aug. 12 bargaining session. The union voted Friday in favor of the agreement, which will give teachers in the district a 22.82 percent increase in their base salary, and a roughly 12.5 percent increase in total salary compensation after factoring in a loss in local levy money due to the new funding model.

Shari Conditt, president of the Woodland Education Association, said the new model is an opportunity to better fund teacher salaries, but could also have some negative consequences.

“I worry that this new system of establishing a salary schedule is going to create more problems for school districts,” she said, adding that each district handling salary schedules locally could lead to even greater pay disparity among districts.

“It’s scary. It’s really scary.”