Berkeley Unified School District and the Berkeley Federation of Teachers have agreed to a permanent 2.5 percent increase in teachers’ salaries beginning in the 2013-14 school year.
Both parties came to this agreement last week, and it is now subject to approval by members of both organizations, ending negotiations that have stretched back to January. Negotiations also include a one-time 2.5 percent bonus to teachers that will come before the end of the current school year.
“This provides some badly needed relief for teachers,” said Cathy Campbell, president of BFT. “Some of these teachers are on five or six years without a raise in the face of increasing health care costs.”
Teacher contracts have remained the same from 2008 to 2012 because both parties agreed that it would be best for the city to keep teacher salaries stagnant during times of economic uncertainty. Due to this and other cuts, the school district now finds itself with an $8.7 million surplus, which it is now using to increase wages.
“I think that in this case, there is a foundational respect for what teachers do within our community and district,” Campbell said. “The biggest hurdle in these negotiations was the uncertainty of the 2013 state budget.”
Karen Hemphill, president of the district school board, said that the school district was unable to reach a long-term agreement with the BFT and will continue negotiations in October. This is largely due to the uncertainty concerning the specifics of Gov. Jerry Brown’s new education reform proposal.
Brown’s proposal looks to change from a demographic-based funding system to a need-based one. The proposal looks to give more funding to districts with higher percentages of students who are English learners, economically disadvantaged or foster youth.
Both Hemphill and Campbell said Berkeley schools have avoided problems that other cities faced under reduced funding, such as furloughs and shorter school years, due to the community’s commitment to funding education by voting for items like Prop. 30 and the parcel tax.
“Even though the district had created a carry-over fund, without Prop. 30, we would deplete that in a year,” Hemphill said. “You didn’t know what you would have that you would be able to offer as compensation, and the unions obviously understood that.”
The Berkeley Council of Classified Employees, a sister union of the BFT that represents noncertified employees, is also negotiating with the school district on wage increases. However, Paula Phillips, president of BCCE, says that negotiations are not going as well as the ones with the BFT.
“A lot of my members’ paychecks have gone down between $200 and $300,” Phillips said. “So the district balances their budget off of the backs of the lowest-paid employees in our district.”
Contact Jose Hernandez at [email protected]