Contract deadlock: Seniority remains basis of layoffs for Colfax district

The layoff procedure at the Colfax school district will continue to be based on seniority, at least until the end of this school year.

Also, contract negotiations between the school district and its teachers remain in a deadlock as they work to replace the contract that expired last Aug. 31.

The teacher’s union, Colfax Education Association (CEA), last Wednesday departed the mediation session with the seniority policy intact because their former contract remains in effect.

Staff layoffs at Colfax are now based on how long teachers have worked at the school. The teacher hired most recently will be the first subjected to a layoff.

The school district has a proposal on the table that called for any teacher layoffs to first be categorized by subject area and then by seniority.

Cary Cammack, president of the CEA, told the Gazette the two sides didn’t reach an agreement at the Wednesday mediation session. A staff member from the state’s Public Employment Relations Commission presided at the session.

The current contract, under which layoffs still occur by seniority, will stand until it expires next August or until an agreement is reached between the CEA and the school district.

At a March 14 board meeting, a letter signed by 39 of the 42 teachers in the district was delivered to the board by Cammack. Teachers in the letter said they were strongly in favor of their current contract, which keeps layoffs based off seniority.

The deadline for teachers to be notified of layoffs or Reductions in Force (RIF), is May 15. Superintendent Michael Morgan noted because the state’s final education budget figures may not emerge until June, decisions on RIFs may be based on educated guesses and then re-figured when the final state budget is released.

“We don’t have any clue right now how deep those cuts might go. If it is one person or three people, we don’t have any idea until the legislature starts putting a budget out,” Morgan said.

Morgan said the district is in the process of setting up another mediation date in May.

RIFs are anticipated for both the Colfax School District and many other districts around the state in light of impending cuts to the state education budget.

While the district’s contract with teachers expired last August, it remains in effect under a clause which extends a contract if a new agreement cannot be reached.

A new agreement did not emerge from the March 16 mediation session.

Supt. Morgan said the next step is to create an “education plan” in which the school board lays out a detailed plan for RIFs. Part of that plan will be to pinpoint school entities the district must keep to abide by state law.

Morgan said the plan focuses on target areas the district wants to keep. He said this is not a backdoor approach to basing layoffs on subject areas.

Cammack wrote the CEA’s position in a news release:

“At the March 14 school board meeting, the superintendent stated that parts of the proposal the district put forward would not work in Colfax. He also noted that he was not sure what proposals were on the table. At this point, CEA does not know what the district’s proposal is and can work only with the one that was put forth at the initial session, which is a complete revision of the current Layoff-Recall (RIF) contract language.”

Cammack’s statement said the seniority dispute was the reason negotiations between the teachers and CEA have stalled and the mediation process will continue.

Cammack said the CEA put forward only “housekeeping issues” and no economic proposals in the current negotiations because they recognize the economic situation of the state and district.

The session last week was the lone mediations session to date and there was no resolution at that session, he noted.