Written by: Steve Mencher

Published: 23 September 2019

The state of California is planning for a minimum wage hike to $15 per hour. But it won’t fully take effect until 2023. 

Marty Bennett has been organizing workers in Sonoma County for decades. His current fight? Accelerating the minimum wage hike in Sonoma County to take effect sooner than the state’s timeline. The next battleground is the Santa Rosa City Council on October 1.

He talked with Northern California Public Media News Director Steve Mencher.

(Image: Joint Base Charleston Child Care)

Written by: Mark Prell

Published: 23 September 2019

Written by: Isabella Bloom

Published: 19 September 2019

The West Sonoma County Teachers Association is currently in negotiations with the West Sonoma County Union High School District over teachers’ salaries. KRCB News Director Steve Mencher talked with Paul Nicholas Boylan, special legal counsel for the district, about the state of negotiations and the district’s current stance. 

Hear the full interview between KRCB News Director Steve Mencher and West Sonoma County district legal counsel Paul Nicholas Boylan. 

“At this point the parties have negotiated — they have been negotiating for some time. They could not come to an agreement, so the parties declared what’s known as impasse,” Paul Boylan said of the state of negotiations between the West Sonoma County district and teachers’ union. Boylan explained that an impasse declaration means the Public Employment Relations Board of California appointed a mediator. This mediator met with both sides, but a settlement could not be reached. As a result, the parties entered fact-finding.

In fact-finding, the district chooses a panel member, the teachers’ union chooses a panel member and the State of California Public Employment Relations Board assigns a neutral fact-finder who ultimately writes the fact-finding report. The district chose Boylan as their representative and the teachers’ union chose a California Teachers Association representative. Both representatives will meet with the neutral fact-finder on October 7th, after which the report will be made public. 

“Hopefully that will lead to a settlement, no guarantee, but that’s what we all hope for,” Boylan said. “If it’s rejected, then the district has the option of imposing their last, best and final offer, whatever it may be, or do nothing. And that point, when the district imposes, the union has the option of accepting the imposition of the district’s last best and final, or they have the option of striking.” 

Boylan explains why the district feels their hands are tied and they can’t offer more generous raises at this point. 

“The district is facing hard financial times because they’re in an era of deficit spending,” said Boylan. “A number of years ago they provided a raise they could not afford and they’re paying for it now. And the way they’re paying for it is having their income not matching their expenses. And when that happens, the county puts you in a qualified status and they impose a recovery plan that requires you to cut, to reduce your spending and that includes potentially reducing salaries. The district must do this. If they don't do it successfully, the county can refer this to the state which will take the district under receivership and they will appoint a receiver that will fire and hire as they wish as long as the books balance. This is not a worse case scenario boogeyman thing. This is something the district is actually potentially facing.”

When asked about the best possible outcome of these negotiations for both the district and the teachers, Boylan said it’s for both parties to find middle ground.

“But if one side believes there is income available the other side does not, that means they’re very far apart and that makes it difficult,’ Boylan said. “But the best case scenario is that they sit down and accept each other’s values and interests. For instance the district has a value and an interest in continuing to be able to produce and provide educational services for their students. They don’t want to cut back on programs. They don’t want to lay off staff in order to get the resources they need in order to continue to operate. That’s their interest.”

Boylan explained the issues with a teacher strike. “The teachers of course want to get the best possible income they can,” said Boylan. “Labor strikes ultimately are unproductive, teachers lose income when there’s a strike, they lose their retirement benefits, they lose good will with the community, and the scars of a strike usually take years to overcome so everybody loses when a strike occurs. Although teachers may feel they have no other option, that is something we should all try to avoid.”

Boylan advises listeners to contact their state representatives. “California is a wealthy state by any stretch of the imagination. We can afford to do whatever we want to do. I’m hoping that our legislature wants to fund education to a level where districts can afford to pay their teachers salaries that they can then use to live more comfortably in the communities where they work.”

Here's the first part of this story where we talked to Brian Miller, a math teacher at Analy High School and chair of the teachers’ union bargaining team. 

Written by: Isabella Bloom

Published: 19 September 2019

The West Sonoma County Teachers Association is currently in negotiations with the West Sonoma County Union High School District over teachers’ salaries. KRCB’s Isabella Bloom talked with Brian Miller, a math teacher at Analy High School and the chair of the teachers’ union bargaining team. She asked him about the teachers’ grievances toward the district.

“We have teachers here who can’t do it, who have lived here a long time,” Brian Miller said of the low teacher salaries. “Can you imagine if you’re trying to pay rent, trying to have a child? Do we want our teachers to be financially overwhelmed? That doesn’t help anybody. And it hurts the profession and it hurts our students, you know most of all because of that high turnover rate. If you don’t have consistency in a department, you don’t grow as fast because you’re constantly stalled trying to get the next group, the next few teachers set up and if somebody leaves, you’re doing it all over again. So yeah, teacher retention is an issue and a bigger issue is attracting teachers, I think that’s even more difficult.” 

When asked about the last time teachers received a wage increase, Miller said, “The problem is our wage increases in the past have always come with some deal about decreasing health benefits or changing our health benefits to some district structure which happened a few years ago.” He said over 2 years ago, teachers got a six percent raise, but health care was restricted and employees were moved to a health care cap. The raise, Miller said, was just a cost of living adjustment. 

Another problem, according to Miller, is that instead of a raise, the district will offer teachers a one-time bonus. This bonus doesn’t go on the teachers’ salary schedules so, along with being taxed higher, teachers don’t receive compound interest. “Raises are like a compound interest scenario so you want to get a three percent raise this year because then your next raise, your raise gets a raise,” said Miller. “And so if you don’t get raises on the salary schedule, your living stays flat.”

Miller said teachers are demanding to be respected. They want raises consistent with the consumer price index, which is a measure of the buying power of your money. He explained that the consumer price index is at 3.5 percent, so teachers would need a 3.5 percent raise in order for the buying power of their salary to remain stable. 

“So that’s what we’re asking,” said Miller. “Our last offer it was four percent last year, four percent this year and four percent next year. That’s what we have on the table. And that doesn’t do a lot to get us where we need to be. I mean we’re 17.5 percent behind the state average. That’s not going to close that gap but that’s going to do a lot to show us that the district is trying, that they are prioritizing us.”

The legal counsel of the West Sonoma County district said the district does not have money in their budget to pay for an increase in salaries for teachers because the district is operating in a budget deficit. However, Miller said the disparity between what the teachers believe the district can afford and what the district believes it can afford is based on the two groups looking at different trajectories. “They live in a world of their budget projectories so everything they will present is always a projection,” said Miller. “They almost never use the unaudited actuals which is what actually happened. They’re starkly different from their projections. So the union, however, only uses the unaudited projectories. They don’t bother with the projections. They don’t waste time with projections because they’re so historically inaccurate. So what we focus on is what actually happened. How much money do you have now? How much did you have the year before? How much did you have the year before that? That’s why it often sounds like we’re talking about two different budgets, because in a sense we are. They’re talking about a fictitious budget, literally a fictitious budget.” 

So what is the district offering the teachers? Miller and legal counsel for the district Paul Boylan both say the offer is currently at a zero percent raise for the first year. 

“We need to know we have support,” said Miller. “The different ways you can show support to the union, number one, is to email the board. If you go to the district website their emails are right there. We need the community to back your teachers. Contact us, contact our union president, hang our flyers and signs that say stand with West County teachers. We need the community to put pressure on the board just to let them know that there is a crisis, that there is an urgent crisis that’s happening right now that can’t be ignored.” 

Hear the interview with Paul Nicholas Boylan, the legal counsel of the West Sonoma County district. 

According to the Guardian, Santa Rosa is the fifth least affordable city for teachers in the U.S., with 53% of teachers’ incomes going toward rent. 

Watch a video made by Brian Miller on the meaning of “prioritize teachers” in the West County. In the video, Miller describes the district’s budget, causes of deficit spending and teachers’ demands.