After A Day And a Half Of Bargaining Following AEA Tuesday Rally And Statements To School Board, Two Sides Find Compromise Mid- Morning Thursday
By Larry Freeman
The Alameda Education Association’s Bargaining Unit, following a rally in City Hall Plaza on Tuesday, where teachers and community members made pay and benefits exhortations at an Alameda School Board Meeting, found common ground with AUSD negotiators and arrived at a tentative salary boost agreement totaling 7% for teachers, nurses, counselors and speech and language pathologists.
Details related to dollar figures and the ebb and flow of the negotiations are basic at this time , but in a Press Release issued mid day by AUSD, the Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA), to be added permanently to the salary schedule, is comprised of a 6% raise retroactive to 7/23, with another 1% retroactive to 1/1/24 tab out at 7%.
The State Of California provided all schools with a COLA of 8.22% for this fiscal school year.
What appears to be AUSD’s last offer to AEA was less than the union’s target goal of 11%, a number they claim places where they are compared to the local salary schedule average in comparable districts.
Teachers and their professional colleagues noted above also got a nominal increase to what the district contributes to health care, to $12, 256 per year.
While AUSD employees have a variety of plan options available, the out of pocket expenses can be well above the AUSD contribution for many who choose to go with District offered packages managed by CALPERS, a public employee sector state agency.
On the low end, a single employee may get a plan for just over $800 up to about $1,300 a month, while a member with 2 dependents can pay from just under $2,100 a month to about $3,400 a month.
In its press release AUSD says that another plus for teachers comes from the fact that their proportion of the cost is “ irrespective of how many family members are on the plan, an historically significant increase to benefits.”
In a statement District Superintendent Pasquale Scuderi noted that reaching this agreement was a give a take matter that required working “hard and and creatively towards a contract that reflects (district respect for its educators) within the constraints of state and federal funding that is consistently inadequate for the mission and mandates of public education.”
If teachers and the school board vote to ratify, a five month, long haul negotiating process will come to a close, avoiding possible time and energy consuming scenarios of “contract day” work slowdowns, fact-finding processes with a state mediator, a declaration of impasse, and even the extreme of strikes.
ANN is awaiting responses from AUSD, Board President Jennifer Williams and AEA members to update this story.
