July 17, 2008
Keene Sentinel
Monadnock election will coincide with primary
SWANZEY CENTER — Dueling factions in the Monadnock Regional School District may still not agree on exactly what constitutes an “emergency” in their schools. But the law has sided with teachers and school officials.
The groups scored a victory Monday when Cheshire County Superior Court Judge Brian T. Tucker ordered the district to hold a special election for voters to weigh a newly negotiated teachers’ contract.
The special election, which will be held with the state primary election Sept. 9, runs against objections waged by three parties: Sullivan selectmen, Fitzwilliam selectmen and Swanzey resident Richard E. Bauries of the Monadnock School Taxpayers Association, a district watchdog group.
Lawyers for both towns, along with Bauries, who represented himself, and attorneys for the district and teachers’ union argued their cases before Tucker in a June 12 Superior Court hearing.
In March, voters defeated a proposed four-year teachers’ contract, 1,628 to 1,532, according to recount totals. District taxpayers similarly voted down a teachers contract in 2006, and last year the union and school board failed to negotiate a contract in time for it to make it to the ballot.
Central to the recent Superior Court case was whether the situation that’s resulted from this lack of a contract — low morale and frozen wages — qualifies as the “emergency” required by state statute to hold a special election before the regular district meeting in March.
Such an emergency is defined by state statute as “a sudden or unexpected situation or occurrence … of a serious and urgent nature” demanding prompt action, including an immediate expenditure of money.
At the June 12 hearing, Bauries said the problems at Monadnock don’t fit the bill, saying that while raises are frozen until voters pass a new contract, teachers are still receiving their salaries along with 90 percent of their health insurance costs.
But Tucker disagreed, citing a “significant decline” in teacher morale and the labor unrest that many believe led to the “sick-out” last March when 29 teachers from the middle/high school called in ill after the teachers’ contract was defeated.
“More than twenty teachers have resigned, including experienced teachers,” Tucker wrote, adding that “most applicants tend to be young and relatively inexperienced.”
Tucker also cited evidence presented by J. Joseph McKittrick, the attorney representing the teachers’ union, that 60 percent of the staff is being paid below their experience levels because raises have been frozen, in the absence of a a voter-approved contract, since July 2005.
And despite the fact that Monadnock voters have a history of rejecting teachers’ contracts — along with operating budgets — Tucker wrote, “The emergency was not foreseeable or avoidable. The union and the district presented a contract at the … annual meeting that they believed satisfied the requirements of the voters.”
When that was rejected, Tucker wrote, the union made concessions the district hadn’t predicted. These include the teachers’ agreement to a faster phase-out of early retirement, a controversial benefit that enables veteran teachers to retire early while receiving a portion of their salaries for a set period of time.
The new contract increases the amount of so-called longevity payments — financial incentives available through a pool of money to veteran teachers for staying in the district. But it also gets rid of the the much-debated evergreen clause, which allows benefits such as pay raises to continue during negotiations for a new contract.
Monadnock district attorney Paul L. Apple said this morning he doesn’t know yet how House Bill 1436, which requires including an evergreen clause in contracts for public employees, will affect the Monadnock teachers’ agreement. Gov. John H. Lynch signed that bill, which is effective upon passage, into law Tuesday.
In his ruling Monday, Tucker wrote that requiring teachers to wait until March before bringing their contract to voters would have an “adverse consequence” for both staff and students.
In an e-mail Tuesday, Superintendent Kenneth R. Dassau wrote, “The administration and school board are naturally excited over the judge’s decision. I am very hopeful that the public will positively respond to the opportunity provided by the Judge and will approve this latest contract effort.”
School board Chairman Eugene M. White of Swanzey said he could understand how “emergency” could be interpreted both ways but was pleased by Tucker’s take.
Teachers “made a lot of concessions to get this done,” he said. “I’m hoping the voters will realize that this is a good deal, and they will pass it and we can put this behind us.”
But Bauries said this morning that the latest contract is padded with unnecessary spending such as early retirement, which the town of Sullivan has charged was never legal in the first place in a case pending in Superior Court.
“Our position is that we vehemently oppose the contract because of all the pork that’s in it,” he said, adding that the members of the Monadnock School Taxpayers Association’s executive council, who he declined to identify, will be meeting to discuss the group’s next step.
Sullivan Selectman Chairman Richard Hotchkiss said he can’t comment until he’s read Tucker’s decision.
But Fitzwilliam Selectman Carmen M. Yon maintained his position.
“It wasn’t an emergency that needed to have a special meeting,” he said Tuesday. Teachers should have a contract, he said, but argued that the new agreement is too similar to the most recently defeated contract to warrant a new vote.
“The new one is not that much different,” he said. “They’ll probably just go through the same thing all over again and waste some more of the taxpayers’ money.”
On Tuesday, the school board set an official-ballot first session for Aug. 9 at a to-be-determined location.