Takeaways from TTA Contract Negotiations, Session 5

Negotiations are in full swing, and a chunk of the meeting was set aside for a budget presentation by Town Manager Richard Montuori

To see the rules for the open contract negotiations, click here; to see our Session 2 recap, click here; Session 3 is here; and you can find Session 4 here. A copy of the current teachers contract is here, and the ESP (education support personnel) contract is here.

Find the School Committee informational page here, and the TTA site here. And of course you can watch all the sessions on the Tewksbury TV YouTube channel.

Tonight’s negotiation began with the budget presentation promised by Tewksbury’s town manager of 13 years, Richard Montuori, at the end of the last negotiation. Montuori opened by sharing that he bases the town’s budget on recurring revenues, which are property taxes, state aid and local receipts.

The town’s stabilization fund is set up to accumulate money to be used for one-time expenditures. In the last 13 years, the town has taken over $2 million per year out of the stabilization fund for town and school projects. Currently, there is $18.3 million in the fund, and after May town meeting, the expectation is that number will go down to $11.4 million, if residents vote to spend $5.5 million on school projects and $1.2 million on town capital improvements. There are also $9 million in town capital improvement outlays projected over the next five years, in addition to district capital improvements not included in that $9 million. The only source of funding for these upcoming projects is the stabilization fund. Without that money, the town would have to use operational revenue, which would impact the town and district operating budgets, or borrow the funds, which adds principal and interest payments to the budget.

Montuori also expressed concerns about both state and federal funding. The federal government has not budgeted more than three months ahead in a long time. And recently, Governor Maura Healey did enact 9C budget cuts. Per Section 9C of Chapter 29 of the General Laws, the governor may reduce spending when tax revenues fall short — which they have the last six months — to balance the budget without a vote from the legislature. Luckily, school districts were not hit in the recent round of cuts.

Montuori also noted that the town’s free cash has been up and down for the last few years for various reasons, like project costs being higher than estimates, negative interest earnings or returning money to free cash if a project is changed, like the DPW. He concedes the town has a conservative approach in regard to free cash but believes that has left the budget in a solid financial position.

Over the last 13 years, the town has spent $8.9 million of stabilization funding on the schools, including the $5 million on the May town warrant, in addition to $3.7 million of free cash for the schools, for a total of $12.6 million. These figures do not include any design work on the DPW building, which will include the school maintenance facility.

The TTA did want to make clear that they do not want the town to use stabilization funds to help pay for salaries, but they do believe that the town is underestimating the amount of funds that will go into the town stabilization fund and want more money to be allocated in the school operational budget. Montuori contends that it isn’t fiscally prudent for the town to allocate this money since Tewksbury should have a reserve for unforeseen circumstances.

A final point, as you can see on slide 8 of Montuori’s presentation, linked below, in a comparison to two other towns that have recently negotiated their contracts, Tewksbury has lowest per capita income but also the highest tax rate. That is partially due to passing Prop 2 1/2 overrides to fund the new fire station, the new elementary school, the high school and the library.

The community has been willing to step up to replace all these aging buildings, said Montuori, but that does affect the tax rate.

You can download Montuori’s presentation here:

The TTA asked for a response to their previous question on the bereavement policy, if it’s up to five days per year or per loss. The district confirmed it was per loss. The TTA asked to make sure the language reads that it is up to each member to decide how many days of the five available they will take.

ESP prep time is still in discussion. Many ESPs spoke about why they need prep time, which they currently don’t have. Reasons cited included a need to review IEPs and 504s for new students, time to discuss with teachers the needs of students in the class, being able to go over lesson plans with teachers and come up with game plans to assist struggling students and the privacy of students when staff have to discuss any of these issues in front of a class.

The district asked how they envision this prep time, and the ESPs say they are open to any plan. The district has a proposal to increase ESP hours per day to seven from six, and they think there is an opportunity to add prep time in this extra hour.

Half day sick days and ESPs stepping up to cover classes is still an ongoing discussion. The TTA made many arguments for the half day sick day, and the district does agree that having them is reasonable. The point of contention is wording in the ESP contract. The district would like the contract to give ESPs an option to volunteer to cover a class, and if there are no volunteers, the building principal can assign someone. The ESPs are opposed to wording that the principal can assign someone if there are no volunteers. They feel that there has never been an issue of not finding a volunteer and that some ESPs may not feel comfortable substitute teaching. The TTA also notes that in other districts that have half day sick days, they often have subs come in for full days and switch classes mid-day; it’s possibly an opportunity for a stay-at-home parent to work a half day while a younger child is in school. There was no resolution to these proposals yet.

The district had a counter to the tuition reimbursement proposal, offering a $10,000 pool with $1,500 available per ESP. The teacher reimbursement pool would go up to $85,000 from $66,000, also $1,500 per teacher. The TTA asked for clarification on if this can be split between two classes.

The district proposed increasing the number of sick days that can be applied to a non-birth parent or foster parent from 10 days to 20 days.

Based on a TTA question, the district said that the change to 65 minute blocks in prep time for pre-k from 75 minutes is because there will be 10 minutes added to the beginning or end of the day and they are not losing any time.

District proposed changes to Appendix B titles (change Newspaper Advisor to Media Advisor for Student News, change Literary Magazine to Media Advisor for Student Creative Arts and change Detention Supervisor to Restorative Justice Coordinator) were solely an update to what is more current. There is no plan to change the positions.

The district rejected language that all leave would be scheduled through the Frontline app. The app isn’t currently set up to schedule certain types of leave, so they will still need to go through the superintendent. This is just clarification on the process.

The district came back with a new change to teachers’ hours. They are now proposing 7.5 hour days as opposed to their previous proposal of 8 hours. The district feels this is the best way to add on the extra prep time that teachers feel they need without cutting learning time for students. The TTA noted that they are looking to even up the inequity between the lower elementary prep time and the upper grades, as the upper grades do not feel they need extra prep time. Per a presentation by Assistant Superintendent Lori McDermott, teachers are currently actually working 7 hours and 14.5 minutes a day due to out of normal work hour duties and staff meetings. The 7.5 hour day would build in all the extra tasks and create some extra time for prep and common planning.

The TTA is frustrated that, in a time when education is in crisis, the district is asking for more hours while not offering salary increases similar to what other nearby towns have provided. They did say they would entertain this proposal. They also stated that, even though the district is offering the extra 15 minutes, they are dictating how it must be spent. The district response was that they don’t intend to dictate exactly how the time must be spent but just list the tasks that may be done in the time.

The work day presentation can be found here.

While nothing was accepted in this meeting, there are some items that are close to being settled with minor language tweaks. The next negotiations are scheduled for March 19 and April 2 and 23.