Agreement ratified

Wednesday at the Board meeting, LNEA reported that the teachers had ratified the new negotiated agreement. Fifty-seven percent of teachers voted, and of those a majority voted yes. The Board of Education then voted to ratify. Back pay for lateral movement or longevity, and the $500 payment for teachers who were with the district in 2012-13, should be paid by April 26.

Cooperative dissolution is on State BOE Agenda

The state board of education agenda for April 8 includes the dissolution of the Leavenworth County Special Education Cooperative as a consent item. The joint petition to dissolve the coop is available by clicking here.

Agreement reached for 2013-14

LNEA has settled with USD 453 for 2013-14. We believe this is the best agreement we can make with the district for this difficult year.

Here is a short summary of the proposed changes to the agreement:

• Under Article 23, Lateral Movement, teachers WILL get their lateral movement if they took classes or earned a new degree, BOTH this year and next year. The payment for lateral movement this year will be retroactive to the beginning of the school year. Some outdated language was also removed.
• All teachers who take the district’s health insurance next year will have $390 per month paid by the district. For those taking the Single plan this is an annual increase of $1020 per year. Teachers who take the Employee + 1 plan will have $660 more per year paid by the district.
• Under Article 26, Salary Schedule, the salary schedule will not be altered this year. Teachers who have been with the district long enough to earn longevity pay WILL get that pay, retroactive to the beginning of the year. Longevity pay will be guaranteed for next year also. Teachers who should have received movement this year will get a one-time payment of $500 within one month of ratification of this agreement.
• Article 24, Vertical Movement, is frozen for 2013-14.
• For teachers in Leavenworth schools, this agreement extends the school day without extending the duty day, in order to make up lost time.

USD 453 teachers should have received a Surveymonkey link to place a ratification vote. If you did not receive this message, please first check your junk mail or spam folder. If the message is not there, contact lneanews@gmail.com. Give your name, teaching assignment, and email address. All current teachers are eligible to vote except those who are retired through KPERS.

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Negotiations meeting today

The LNEA team made two new proposals at today's negotiations session.  The first proposal asked for vertical movement for all teachers who continue with the district in 2014-15, with back pay paid as a lump sum.  The district's response was that "if the co-op doesn't dissolve we would be required to give step movement and we don't have that authority."   They also stated that assuming they agreed, the money they've been budgeting for increases next year would be gone at the beginning of the year with the lump sum payment.  They reiterated their offer of a one-time $500 payment.

In the interest of settling this so that we can begin work on next year's agreement, we made a final offer that would give all teachers a one-time $500 payment immediately.  At the beginning of 2014-15, teachers who should have gotten movement in 2013-14 would get step movement and start getting paid for it next year.  Teachers who have earned lateral movement would receive back pay. There would be no back pay for vertical movement; the step would begin in the fall of 2014.

The district's response to this was again, "The issue with it is that if the co-op doesn’t dissolve we do not have authority from the SAB to move [teachers] up automatically a step. The SAB has specifically instructed us that they do not want special education teachers moved up a step because that would require them to match it next year if the coop dissolves and pay them at that level.  If the coop doesn’t dissolve, the district is charged under this to move the step up which costs more in the next budget and then we have basically usurped our powers under the co-op agreement."

We have asked them to present this offer to the SAB.  We have been told they are budgeting to pay for increases for next year and this proposal does not exceed that.

The LNEA team is exasperated by feeling as if we are bargaining with the superintendents of 6 school districts instead of the Board of Education of USD 453.

However, as the district's negotiator said, "We are stuck by certain confines. If we had a crystal ball and knew that we were going to get approval, that is a huge factor that is off the table."