"Disappointed" would best describe the feelings of the Austin Education Association (AEA) negotiating team, AEA president Cheri Stageberg said Saturday.

Sunday, October 03, 1999

"Disappointed" would best describe the feelings of the Austin Education Association (AEA) negotiating team, AEA president Cheri Stageberg said Saturday.

As of Wednesday, talks between the AEA, which represents the teachers, and the school district’s negotiating team reached the point where calling in a mediator seemed like the logical thing to do. The two sides have been negotiating a new teachers’ contract since April, and have until January to wrap up an agreement before facing penalties from the state.

Estimated time of arrival for state mediator? Two to three weeks.

"We went into negotiations hoping to settle quickly and it just hasn’t happened," chief AEA negotiator Jeff Ollman said. "We’re ready to compromise. We know that with negotiations you never get everything you want … We just hope a mediator will help us get the ball rolling."

The sticking points are salary schedules, payment for insurance and an early retirement program that Ollman characterized as "the worst in the Big Nine." All the AEA wants, he said, is for Austin to be competitive with the other Big Nine teacher contracts.

In comparing Austin’s 1998-99 salary schedules, Stageberg said Austin comes out ninth out of 10 schools, and sixth out of seven contracts (seven contracts because Rochester has three schools; Mankato has two). According to the AEA calculations, Winona was the only district paying its teachers less over the past two years.

This time around, the AEA team was asking for a 7 percent raise for each of the two years of the contract when negotiations started. Then the figure came down to 6.3 percent. The AEA’s last proposal before talks broke down was 6 percent. The district side had initially proposed a 1.5 percent increase for the first year; Ollman said it was unclear what percentage increase the district was proposing for the second year.

According to district attorney Steve Rizzi, the district’s offer included increasing each cell of the salary schedule by $700 per year, as well as increases for additional education and number of years experience. He couldn’t confirm a 2.3 percent figure mentioned at the meeting. Ollman pointed out that because increases for additional education and number of years experience are already a part of the salary schedule, they would be nothing new. However, because the district is including those as part of its offer, accurately comparing salary percentage increases becomes a problem.

"When we looked at their counter to our proposal on Wednesday, it was our perception that they really hadn’t moved at all," Ollman said. "So we suggested mediation."

The rising cost of insurance is another factor in negotiations. The teachers are $300 below their former salaries to start with because of insurance cost increases – it was written into their contract that when insurance costs rose significantly the teachers would make up the difference. For the next contract, the district is proposing families contribute $35 a month and singles $15 per month in the second year of the contract toward health insurance. The AEA wants the district to continue paying the full cost.

"There are other districts that do that [have teachers pay a portion on insurance costs], but they have better policies too," Ollman said. "It doesn’t necessarily make sense for us to pay more of our insurance costs, because we’d still be getting the same policy. We can appreciate where companies and districts are coming from, but Austin’s costs actually haven’t gone up as much as many other places."

This will be the first time in a long time that the two groups have had to use a mediator. When the previous contract – which ran out June 30 – was negotiated, the two sides reached an agreement before the school year. Then, as now, school board members Lew Aase and John Ulland were part of the district’s negotiating team, as well as the district’s personnel director and business manager. Leading the district negotiations this year is Steve Rizzi, the district’s attorney and a new addition to the negotiations.

Negotiating for the AEA are Ollman, a language and speech pathologist at Banfield; Stageberg, an Austin High math teacher, another secondary teacher, another elementary teacher and the previous chief negotiator for the AEA, who is retired.

"January 15 is a date that looms," Ollman said. "The district stands to lose $100,000 if this isn’t settled by then. Like I said, we’re ready to compromise and get this done so we can get back to focusing on the real job of education – working with kids."