School board and teacher’s union at odds over spending proposal

YOUNGSTOWN — The city school board president took a dim view of the district teachers’ union asking the state fiscal oversight commission to consider some specific job cuts to reduce district spending.

“I am disappointed in the action taken by you, on behalf of the Youngstown Education Association, to issue a letter to the state commission suggesting the elimination of four specific personnel positions without even attempting to discuss the suggestion with the local board of education,” Anthony Catale wrote in an April 10 letter to Will Bagnola, YEA president.

“The district administration and local board is where any reduction plan originates,” Catale wrote, suggesting that the YEA letter was “nothing more than an attempt to undermine any positive working relationship the board and YEA had established.”

He said the union “blatantly attempted to bypass any possibility of board consideration on the proposed suggestion.”

Bagnola said the letter sent to the oversight commission didn’t include information that the YEA hadn’t already presented to the school board.

The YEA, in an executive session with the board in May 2008, proposed that the board look at all areas for possible job reductions, not just teachers, Bagnola said. A couple of the specific jobs mentioned in the letter to the commission were part of that discussion, he said.

The board didn’t act on the suggestions, he said, adding, “We did what we did after we gave them a chance.”

Read more in Wednesday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com