PENNSYLVANIA Politician proposes making teachers employees of state

A local teachers union president suggested a better approach would be to require binding arbitration.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
GREENVILLE, Pa. -- All of Pennsylvania's 120,000 public school teachers would become employees of the state under a plan proposed by state Rep. Rod Wilt of Greenville, R-17th.
He plans to introduce a bill during the current special legislative session on tax reform that would direct the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the governor to implement statewide collective bargaining for public school teachers.
The state would negotiate their contract and they would become state employees rather than employees of the 501 school districts in Pennsylvania, but those local districts would retain local control in terms of hiring, firing and granting tenure, Wilt said.
The only difference is that their employment contract, including wages and benefits, would be negotiated as one big agreement by the state, he said.
There would be an immediate cost savings because all of those people would automatically become members of the state health insurance package, which can provide coverage at a cost below that paid by individual districts, Wilt said.
He has no estimate on what that savings might be, but said it should be substantial.
A central contract isn't such a radical idea, Wilt said.
"We're already doing this in Pennsylvania. There is precedent," he said, referring to the single contract that has been in place for years for the teaching staffs at the 12 state-owned universities in Pennsylvania.
Reactions to plan
Local school officials and union heads are approaching Wilt's proposal with some caution.
They aren't openly speaking against it but say there are some major problems to overcome.
"That does seem like a monumental task," said William Gibb, president of the Hermitage teachers union, suggesting that a better focus might be working on a plan to require teachers and school boards to enter binding arbitration to end contract disputes.
That's what police and firefighters do, and binding arbitration would eliminate the possibility of any teachers strikes, Gibb said. Hermitage teachers struck earlier this year when negotiations on a new contract broke down.
It might make both sides more willing to negotiate because there are no guarantees in binding arbitration and both sides must live with the results, he added.
A single, statewide teachers contract would be "very interesting," given the difference between the eastern and western parts of the state in terms of wages, benefits and everything else, said Dr. Derry Stufft, superintendent of the Sharpsville Area School District.
Each contract is uniquely geared to that local community, he said.
There is a major difference in salary levels across the state, confirmed Dr. Anthony Trosan, superintendent of the Reynolds School District.
A look at salaries
Some of the richer school districts, particularly in the southeastern corner of the state, are paying teachers nearly $100,000 at the top of their salary scale, which is much higher than the salary scale in Mercer County and in many other districts, he said.
Maximum salaries here are just getting into the $60,000 range, based on some of the most recent teachers contracts.
"You wouldn't even have a standard base to start from," Trosan said, adding that cost-of-living factors for the different parts of the state would also have to be considered.
Wilt said his proposal has that covered.
There wouldn't be a single pay scale for the entire state but, rather, 29 different scales developed on a regional level based on the 29 intermediate units set up in Pennsylvania.
The intermediate unit system was created by the state three decades ago to replace the old county school board system for supplying educational assistance to public school districts.
Most of the intermediate units cover several counties. In Mercer County's case, it is part of Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV, which also covers Lawrence and Butler counties.
Teachers in this area wouldn't see big raises but there would be a gradual move toward parity within the boundaries of the intermediate unit, Wilt said.
There is no new cost to his plan, he said.
However, there will be some immediate savings through reduced health-care insurance costs by putting everyone into the same insurance pool to get lower rates, he said.
No one would face a salary cut, but this could slow down the rate of salary growth, Wilt said, noting that teachers contracts have been averaging 4.7-percent annual increases across the state in recent years while the contract for the 12 state-owned universities has kept annual increases for that group between 2.75 percent and 2.8 percent.
Wilt said that one issue is whether the two big teachers unions in Pennsylvania would ever unite under a single collective bargaining flag.
This could basically force the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) and Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers (PaFT) to merge, he predicted.
A statewide contract is something the PaFT has generally opposed, said Pat Halpin-Murphy, government relations director for the union.
PaFT represents teachers in just 14 of the state's 501 school districts.
The PSEA has the rest and it hasn't taken any formal stand on the issue before, said spokesman Wythe Keever.
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA), which represents the state's school boards, has never supported the concept, said Curt Rose, assistant executive director.
The issue for PSBA members is the loss of local control, he said. School boards feel they should be able to negotiate what is best for their districts rather than have a statewide pact, he said.