Branford Seeks Teacher Concessions, After All

In an unprecedented action, the Branford Board of Education has asked the teachers union and three other bargaining units to reopen talks in order to gain concessions to roll back teacher layoffs the schools chancellor recently announced.

The board authorized its chair, Frank Carrano, to seek to reopen talks. Carrano announced at a BOE meeting Thursday night that he will meet with representatives of the four unions Monday afternoon.

The nine-member BOE is expected to vote on the school budget Saturday at 9 a.m. at Branford High School. Carrano told the Eagle after Thursday’s meeting that the vote Saturday will be taken with the expectation that concessions, if achieved, ​“will mitigate the kinds of choices we make.” The BOE has until June 30 to reconcile its budget. ​“We don’t have to make a final decision right now,” he said.

The decision to take this most unusual step came about a week after Schools Superintendent Kathleen Halligan unveiled a $47.3 million budget, nearly 80 percent of which went to toward teachers’ salaries and benefits. The school budget represents roughly half of the town’s budget.

“We realized that the major area we need to focus on in order to cut the budget is personnel,” Carrano said after Halligan had presented the budget.

Last month when he spoke on behalf of a new three teacher’s contract, he said the contract was fair. He said then he was not inclined to reexamine it.

As it turned out the Representative Town Meeting approved the contract 19 – 7, though some Democrats and Republicans said they later regretted their vote and felt trapped by the state’s binding arbitration rules.

That was then. Now Carrano has adopted a new view. He is hoping, he told the Eagle at Thursday night’s meeting, that the unions will have an interest ​“in preserving the positions” the board has cut. In short, he is hoping to get givebacks so that 12 5 certified teachers and four non-certified employees may keep their jobs.

Carrano said the representatives from the four unions — teachers, administrators, custodians and nurses — had agreed to come to the meeting. ​“That’s a start,” he said.

Each union has different needs, he observed. The teachers’ contract is the most expensive. He said he was concerned about the cost of the teacher’s ​“steps.” Teachers move up a step each year until they get to the 14th year. Each step carries hefty raises. ​“Maybe they would agree not to move up a step every year given the current economic situation. Maybe the administrators will do the same.”

Dr. Halligan signaled this route, leading by example, she said. She announced this week that she and her top staff will take a voluntary wage freeze for the next academic year.

Dr. Halligan along with Assistant Superintendent Dr. Mary Peraro; Business Manager Tashie Rosen; Human Resources Director Paula Gladdys; Director of Facilities Mark Deming, and Chief Technology Officer Clint Kennedy were scheduled to receive a three percent increase. Instead they will take no increase, saving the school system $24,885. .

Dr. Halligan’s $43.3 million school budget cut no major programs. It also ignored First Selectman Unk DaRos’s strong warning that all town boards and commissions examine capital spending before laying off employees. He also urged school officials not to eliminate ​‘character building’ programs like the strings programs which could be cut.

Last month the RTM approved the new three-year teachers contract that will reach $23.6 million in its last year . A minority of mostly Republican legislators vehemently protested the increases in these perilous economic times.

The overwhelming majority of Democrats on the RTM rejected binding arbitration, the one route available to the town to rework a contract of its largest bargaining unit. The contract, which begins July 1, 2009, adds $1 million each year until 2012. Many RTM members said they were caught between a rock and a hard place, because binding arbitration generally favors the unions and removes decision making authority from the town.

If the teachers union agrees to reopen the contract, which the teachers have previously ratified, negotiations would begin anew and they would have to ratify a new contract at a later date. But they have time to do this because the new contract does not go into effect until July, 2009.

At the last RTM meeting Frank Twohill, the Republican minority leader, recommended that the teachers freeze their step increments for one year.

Meanwhile, in another development, Twohill and the 9‑member Republican caucus lobbed a grenade in the direction of Town Hall, admonishing First Selectman Unk DaRos for failing to voice an opinion on the teachers’ contract at last month’s RTM meeting.

“…By being silent you did not serve the best interests of the Branford townspeople who elected you,” the Republicans wrote in a press release.Click here to read it.

The Republicans told DaRos that had he voiced his opinion, the Democratic RTM members would have rejected the costly contract.

DaRos told the Eagle today that he understood the separation of powers. ​“I am the administration. They are the legislators. I strongly respect that separation. In this particular case, the Board of Education represents the citizens of the town.They need to understand that.”

The Republican caucus said it was stunned and outraged to learn of DaRos’s feelings two days after last month’s RTM meeting in an article published in the Branford Eagle, in which DaRos said: ​“if ever there was a year to bring a contract to arbitration, this was the year, especially given anticipated state cutbacks in education and other monetary factors the town faces.”

Twohill said ​“The timing of your statement was outrageous. You could have influenced the RTM and your party members had you stated your opinion the night of the vote. Instead, in not hearing from you to reject the contract, 16 of 17 Democrats present that night voted for the teachers’ contract. Your opinion may have caused the RTM to reject the teacher’s contract, and send the contract to binding arbitration.” Three Republicans joined the Democrats. Only one Democrat, Lisa Avitable, voted against it.

DaRos told the Eagle he did not attend the Democratic caucus meeting beforehand and did not know how the RTM Democrats were going to vote. When he attends the Democratic caucus, he also attends the Republican caucus, he said. ​“I have never let the majority blindsight the minority,” he said today.The Republican statement went on to say that ​“since its passage, our constituents have expressed to us the disbelief and anger that this contract, with its generous raises and ​“step” increases and required property tax hikes to fund them could possibly be passed by our body, in apparent ignorance of their own desperate economic situations”.The Republican caucus told DaRos it had pledged not to support any budget that increases the present mill rate of 23.21. Each signed their names to the resolution. The RTM is controlled by Democrats. But at this juncture in the nation’s economic meltdown it might be difficult to ignore the arguments of their colleagues across the aisle.

In an interview two weeks ago, DaRos observed that Twohill might be two-faced on this issue, because as the key RTM education member and the Republican leader he was vocal in support of new teachers’ contract — -until he changed his mind the night of the vote. Twohill had said it was the best the town could do and he worried about the impact of binding arbitration. But he made up his mind when Carrano would not produce the BOE​’s attorney to discuss binding arbitration.

DaRos apparently had a two-fold aim in not voicing his opinion on the night of RTM meeting. One was to hold the BOE responsible for its budget. ​“They are going to have to live with their decisions,” he said in the prior interview. ​“If you claim the teachers are low paid or average paid, however you put it, then you made those decisions.” A senior teacher in the Branford school system can earn more than $75,000 a year.

DaRos said he expects the Board of Education to come in with a ​“very reasonable budget.” It seems the BOE has finally blinked. ####