Day's Statement on K-L Union Contract Changes

(Katonah-Lewisboro school board Vice President Charles Day, who voted Thursday night to authorize a switch of health insurance plans and a retirement incentive for teachers' union members in their existing contract, felt that they were not enough to address the district's financial situation. Below is a copy of his remarks)

I wanted to make some brief comments on this agreement, why I voted for it, and why I am not as happy with it as the statement that Mark just read would indicate.

This is unquestionably a good financial deal for the district. We will save some money on the buyout of the teachers who retire and we’ll have quite a bit of savings on the health care plan. But I’m concerned that such savings will be viewed as enough to “save us” from the district’s financial problems. It illustrates that we are starting to make progress in collaborating with each other but by no means do I think this is enough.

In a nutshell: I think the district is giving retiring teachers something we shouldn’t have to give, to get something that we shouldn’t have to bargain for.

My concern with the first part of the deal is that most of the teachers we are paying would have retired anyway within the next three years. That’s something we simply should not have to do. By the way, in the agreement we signed two years ago, we paid retiring teachers $10,000. Two years later that price has gone up by 75%. And we agreed to do this for the next three years, not two. Since we won’t know which teachers were actually incentivized to retire by this plan and which would have retired anyway, it will not be possible to figure out what savings were triggered by the plan and what was wasted.

As for the health plan, it is an obvious step that has been on the District’s radar for years. Three years ago when I was on the Finance Committee, our health costs were highlighted as a major factor in the disparity between our “per pupil” expenditures and those of comparable districts in Westchester County. Well over half the districts belong to the State plan we are now belatedly joining, and the price we are paying to join it (the hundreds of thousands we are paying in early retirement over the next three years) is higher, I would argue MUCH higher, than it should be.

I also want to point out that this is NOT a contract; it is a side agreement to a contract that has not yet been agreed to. The current contracts, for all three unions, expire on June 30. That date has been known to both sides for two years, it’s not a sudden development. The statement asks for our patience during that time, but patience isn’t what the parents in the district are feeling. These contracts should be close to finalized at this point, and a statement thanking us in advance for our patience, I would argue is not a good sign.

I also want to give the public a benchmark, in advance, for how to evaluate the deal that is struck: Do the new contracts bring us into line with comparable districts? That is, how many of the terms of the contract that are unique to Katonah Lewisboro are brought into line with comparable districts?

Last week we were presented with a petition signed by over 850 members of the community. Let’s see if the message in that petition was heard. Are we able to negotiate and agree to contracts on time? Do the terms of the contracts change the trajectory of the district’s finances? Or does their failure to do so lead to diminishing the opportunities we are able to give our students in the years to come?

I want to say those petitioners—I hear you loud and clear on this side of the table. I hope the other side of the table heard you too.