BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-12 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 871
AUTHOR: Runner
AMENDED: April 25, 2011
FISCAL COMM: No HEARING DATE: May 11, 2011
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Beth Graybill
SUBJECT : School district employees: Compensation.
SUMMARY
This bill prohibits a school district from entering into any
contract or agreement that provides a compensation increase
for any employee if the district has reduced instructional
minutes or days, as specified.
BACKGROUND
Existing law requires school districts to maintain a minimum
of 175 instructional days in order to receive apportionments
based on average daily attendance. Existing law also
establishes apportionment incentives for the purpose of
encouraging school districts to offer 180 days or more of
instruction per year, however the 2009-10 Budget Act (AB 2
4X, Chapter 2, 2009) reduced apportionment funding for
schools and authorized school districts, county offices of
education, and charter schools to reduce the length of the
school year by up to five days beginning 2009-10 through
2012-13.
The Educational Employee Relations Act (EERA), also known as
the Rodda Act, establishes collective bargaining rights for
public school teachers. The EERA gives teachers the right to
elect an exclusive representative to bargain wages and
working conditions with local school boards. Mandatory
issues that fall under the "scope of representation" include
wages, hours of employment, and other terms and conditions of
employment such as health and welfare benefits, leave,
transfer, and reassignment policies, safety conditions, class
size, procedures to be used for the evaluation of employees,
organizational security, and grievance procedures. EERA also
gives the exclusive representative the right to consult on
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other issues including the definition of educational
objectives, the content of courses and curriculum, the
selection of textbooks, and new issues that may arise during
the period of the contract or as a result of newly enacted
legislation. Collective bargaining agreements are limited to
three years, although they may include a provision for
reopening negotiations on specific terms, such as salary,
benefits, and one or two items to be selected by each party.
Each party's proposal must be presented for public comment at
a publicized school board meeting. This act also established
the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), provided for
good faith negotiations, the arbitration of grievances, and
the recognition of mediation by both sides. (Government Code
� 3540 et. seq.)
Existing law requires each certificated employee of a school
district, except as specified, to be classified on the salary
schedule on the basis of uniform allowance for years of
training and years of experience. A public school employer
and the exclusive representative may negotiate and mutually
agree to a salary schedule based on criteria other than a
uniform allowance. (EC � 45028)
ANALYSIS
This bill :
1) Prohibits a school district from entering into any
contract or agreement that allows for an increase in
compensation for any employee of the school district in
any school year in which a school district reduces its
instructional minutes or days to a level below the
minutes or days provided in the previous school year.
2) Specifies that the prohibition applies only to salary
increases within the same job classification.
3) Specifies that the prohibition does not affect any
provision in a collective bargaining agreement that was
in existence prior to the reduction in instructional
minutes or days.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Purpose . According to the Legislative Analyst's Office
(LAO), more districts are taking advantage of the
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flexibility to reduce their school year. Whereas about
20% of districts reported reducing the school year in
2009-10, almost 60% report reducing the length of the
school year in 2010-11. Not all of these reductions
however, were down to the state minimum of 175 days.
Only 5% of districts reduced to 175 days in 2009-10 and
about 30% of districts reduced the school year to the
state minimum in 2010-11. The author notes that a 2010
study by California Watch indicates that 16 of the 30
largest school districts took advantage of the
flexibility provided by the Legislature and reduced the
number of days in the academic year.
The author's office maintains that a shorter school year
impacts students' chances for academic success and
further weakens the quality of the state's public
schools, noting various studies that show a positive
correlation between instructional time and student
success and indicate that more time in the classroom is
a common characteristic among successful schools. By
prohibiting a school district to enter into contracts
that allow for compensation increases, the author hopes
this bill will help school districts hold down employee
compensation costs in the event that they exercise the
option to shorten the school calendar.
2) Compensation costs and salary schedules . Generally
speaking, employee compensation (salary, benefits, and
retirement) represents about 80 to 85% of a school
district's operating budget, with the majority of those
costs allocated to compensation of a district's
certificated staff. According to the California
Department of Education (CDE), there were nearly 300,000
teachers in public school classrooms in 2009-10. A
school district's employee benefits costs will typically
include professional development, health and life
insurance, and retirement contributions.
3) Uniform salary schedules . Teacher salaries are
established through the collective bargaining process
and each district pays its teachers according to a
uniform salary schedule in which the salary is
determined by a combination of the teacher's level of
education and years of experience. A salary schedule is
comprised of rows (steps) and columns such that each
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cell on the salary schedule represents a specific
combination of years of experience and education beyond
the bachelor's degree. Teachers earn salary increases
by moving up "steps" and across columns (additional
education). A collective bargaining contract will
specify the amount of educational credit required to
move across columns. Depending on the terms of their
contract, teachers can also earn cost-of-living
adjustments in addition to step and column increases and
can also earn supplemental pay for undertaking specific
responsibilities (such as serving as a department chair
or coaching a new teacher).
4) Reducing the school year . Multiple years of budget cuts
and resulting reductions, program cutbacks, and layoffs
have left many LEAs with few options for dealing with
ongoing fiscal constraints and new revenue reductions.
The Legislature provided school districts the
flexibility to reduce the school year starting 2009-10
in order to give local educational agencies (LEAs) more
options to manage their budgets during the state's
ongoing fiscal crisis.
While School Services of California (SSC) notes that the
number of LEAs that choose to reduce the school year may
increase as school districts confront another year of
fiscal constraints, they also caution that the
flexibility does not automatically provide budgetary
relief. If a school district governing board determines
the need to reduce the number of instructional days in
the school year, they may need to negotiate the impact
of those reductions with their local unions. Although
the school year is not considered a "mandatory"
bargaining issue, furloughs and reduced salaries that
may result from changes in the school calendar fall
under the scope of representation established by EERA
and must be bargained. However, as noted by
SSC, negotiating a reduction in the work year and
salaries can be costly for districts. If a contract has
been recently settled, a district may not be able to
make any changes to the school year that would impact
the terms of the contract. If the district is able to
open negotiations, but employee groups do not agree to
the reductions, the process may go to "impasse," which
may take more than a year to settle and can further
erode a district's resources.
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Although this bill specifies that the prohibition
against compensation increases would not affect
collective bargaining agreements in existence prior to
the reduction in the minutes or days, it appears that a
district that decides to reduce the length of the school
year would need to negotiate the impact of those changes
with each of its unions, which could result in "new"
contracts that would come under the provisions of this
bill.
5) Employee issues . This measure would apply to any
employee of the district, including teachers and other
certificated staff as well as principals, classroom
aids, bus drivers, and janitors and would apply to their
pay as well as their benefits.
While the bill allows a salary increase that may result from
a promotion, it is unclear if pay increases resulting
from step and column advancements would be allowed. It
is unclear for example, if this prohibition would extend
to pay increases teachers would otherwise earn by
completing an advanced degree or earning additional
certification. Could the bill also preclude benefit
increases that might arise due to increases in health
care premiums, suggesting that any increase would need
to be passed on to the employees?
The term "compensation" in provision (a) seems inconsistent
with the term "salary" in provision (b), which could
create confusion for LEAs. A reasonable interpretation
of "compensation" would include health, retirement
benefits, vacation, and sick leave, yet the language in
provision (b) could be construed to be limited to
salaries.
6) Limits local control . This bill could give school
districts greater leverage in negotiating contracts when
they are considering a shorter school year among other
options to reduce costs. However, because this bill
would likely have a chilling effect on decisions to
reduce the school year, could this bill reduce a
district's flexibility to address budget reductions,
which could result in more layoffs or larger class
sizes?
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This bill appears to treat all districts the same regardless
of how much time or how many days by which the school
year is reduced. Some districts have maintained school
years that are longer than 180 days. Should a district
that reduces its school year from 182 to 180 days be
subject to the provisions of this bill, even though it
remains above the 175 day minimum? Would the
prohibition apply equally to districts that reduce the
school year by five days as the district that reduces
its calendar by one day? By specifying either days or
minutes, could this bill make it difficult for a
district to negotiate a reduction in the number of days
but maintain approximately the same number of
instructional minutes?
Anecdotal evidence suggests that many districts have already
suspended pay increases and many contracts reflect
concessions that have already been made by employers and
unions. Even in those districts where step and column
increases have continued, an argument can be made that
those decisions (and contracts) reflect agreements made
in light of local needs and obligations and in
consideration of previous reductions and employee
layoffs. This bill appears to reduce the discretion of
local governing boards and is inconsistent with the
Legislature's policy, if only temporary, of providing
districts with fiscal and programmatic flexibility.
7) Related and prior legislation .
SB 772 (Alquist) prohibits a school district or charter
school from entering into or renewing a contract that
provides a pay increase for any employee who is not
eligible to be represented by an exclusive
representative. This bill was scheduled to be heard by
this Committee on May 4, 2011 and was pulled at the
request of the author.
SUPPORT
None received.
OPPOSITION
California Federation of Teachers
California Teachers Association
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