Our bargaining team met with the CMO Wednesday afternoon to continue discussions about salary increases for this school year.
While we did not reach agreement, we did make significant progress. For the first time, the CMO recognized that structural issues in the pay scale create an inequity for members in the middle of their careers, which further drives teacher turnover. As such, the CMO proposed a split raise that would provide a 6-percent raise to members on steps 7 through 20 of the teacher pay scale, while members on step 21 would receive a 3.9-percent raise, and all other members (including all SLPs and Psychologists) would receive a 3.23-percent raise. The CMO stated that the total cost of their proposal would be equivalent to a 5.3-percent raise for the entire bargaining unit. On multiple occasions the CMO bargaining team members referenced specific comments from our members at HTH board meetings – a sign that our organized pressure to provide a competitive pay raise is working! Despite this, we notified the CMO that HTEC membership provided clear direction through our bargaining input sessions that a raise needs to be equally distributed to all members. We further pointed out that, while this is far better than their initial proposal to provide a 1-percent raise to half our membership, it still creates a similar problem where 50 percent of our membership would get about half the raise that the other 50 percent of membership would receive. We asked that the CMO continue to prioritize addressing the inequities that exists in the pay scale in future bargains, when HTEC members can better discuss and come to a consensus on how we can best restructure our pay scale. After a short caucus, our bargaining team presented a counterproposal that would split our 2023-24 raise into two components to lessen the financial impact for this year, while still ensuring that the CMO passes the COLA from state funding to teachers for the long term. Our proposal would increase salaries by 6-percent retroactively effective July 1, 2023 and then increase salaries a further 2-percent effective January 1, 2024. This would result in our pay scales increasing by more than 8-percent, with the school only seeing a 7-percent increase in its expenses for 2023-24. The lesser cost to the CMO is due to the final 2-percent of the raise taking effect for the second half of the year and not figuring into back pay for the first semester. We believe that our proposal to creatively structure the raise, combined with already agreed upon increases to the CMO’s portion of benefit contributions, gives members their fair share of state revenue increases for 2023-24 and positions us to be more competitive in future school years. While the CMO did not provide a counterproposal to our offer yesterday, they did express interest in continued discussions about structuring this year’s raise in a manner similar to our proposal to maximize the impact for future years. We hope to see this reflected in their proposals at future bargaining meetings that will be scheduled after winter break. In the meantime, we need your voice in support of a equitable raise for all certificated staff at the next HTH Board Meeting on Monday December 11th @ 5:00pm. To be placed on the public comment list, please fill out the public comment request form or email Elizabeth Martinez: [email protected]. The HTEC Certificated Bargaining Team Hayden Gore, HTM Chula Vista Grady Gumner, HTe Mesa Charley Jacob, HTH North County Jennifer Merrill, HTe Point Loma Chris Mutter, HTH International Chris Olivas, HTM North County Carly Sumrow, HTM Chula Vista Mary Williams, HTM Point Loma |
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