For Teacher Pact—

Boards Huddle, Prep For Contract Talks

By John Voket

Despite a Board of Education notice indicating a three-board meeting with the Legislative Council and Board of Finance July 1 to discuss who could attend talks for the upcoming teachers’ contract negotiations would be in closed session, the chairmen of the two latter boards insisted that meeting be held in public Wednesday.

And that is how the first hour of the July 1 meeting, mandated by state statute, played out. Once all general questions and statements from members of the council and finance board were addressed, the meeting was closed for more than an hour to detail specific strategies and financial concerns related to the upcoming teacher contract talks.

Following the session, both finance board Chair John Kortze and council Chair Will Rodgers concurred that the open session was warranted, and the outcome of both sessions were ultimately productive.

“It was a good dialog which in the end served to eliminate a lot of the us versus them posturing on the part of some members of the Board of Ed,” Mr Rodgers said. “After a number of specific financial concerns and process questions were addressed in executive session, [school board Chair Elaine McClure] thanked me. The meeting had to be done, not just because it was required, but because we needed to expand the scope of influence from our two other boards.”

While the July 1 triboard gathering ended up with a productive outcome, controversy over the upcoming teachers’ contract negotiations had already begun. Last week, the Board of Finance was expressing concern that a request to appoint two members of that panel as observers during negotiations was initially dismissed.

In previous school union negotiations the finance board tapped Michael Portnoy as the finance board’s sole observer. At least one representative of the council is also expected to be participating as an observer in the upcoming negotiations.

But Mr Kortze said in view of the fact that the upcoming talks will eventually yield the most costly labor contract in town history, his board should have both Mr Portnoy and a second representative to on hand to provide consultation and to cover the proceedings in the event one member is absent. That second representative would be Martin Gersten, an attorney who Mr Kortze said has a wealth of experience in business and labor matters.

According to the finance chairman, issues related to outside observers, as well as participating school board members, are being clouded by comments from Ms McClure. In a recent memo to Mr Kortze, Ms McClure is quoted as saying, “under advice of [the district’s] attorney” there can only be one finance board observer.

Contacted by The Bee for clarification on the matter, attorney Floyd Dugas said he would not discuss specific advice between himself and his client, the Newtown school board. But he did say: “I can tell you generally that Connecticut General Statutes, Section 10-153d(a) is clear in that it provides that ‘a member’ of the Board of Finance or the authority making appropriations shall be permitted to attend negotiations between the a school board and the teachers union.”

During the public segment of the July 1 meeting, finance board Vice Chair James Gaston argued that while the statute stipulates a minimum of one member, it leaves the impression that the school board could accept more than one observer from among the finance officials. But concerns about adding members to the district’s team were not limited to the observers.

School board member Katherine Fetchick, who said she asked to serve on the negotiating committee several times, was also reportedly rebuffed by Ms McClure. After seeking clarity on how many official voting members could participate, fellow school board member Anna Wiedemann reintroduced the subject for discussion during the school board’s last meeting June 16.

Ms McClure is quoted in minutes of that meeting saying that per a directive from attorney Dugas, any such discussion would have to take place in closed session. A draft of the minutes reflects Ms Fetchick’s continuing to question why Ms McClure and David Nanavaty are participating as the sole school board representatives, when any arbitration or mediation would likely extend beyond the limit of Ms McClure’s current term.

Ms Fetchick said she tried to make the point that continuity in the process, and providing an opportunity for another qualified school board representative to be “up to speed” on labor talks, would be essential if those negotiations became protracted by arbitration. Ms McClure, a Republican, was not nominated by her local town committee for another term.

If Ms McClure does not successfully caucus a nomination with the town committee or independently seek reelection to the school board, her term will expire on December 1 of this year.

Providing Greater Perspective

Ms Fetchick said she was told repeatedly that the district could only have two voting representatives at the negotiating table, but a subsequent call to the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE) determined that there is no specific mandate on how many school board members can participate, according to the association.

Mr Nanavaty, who is an attorney, is quoted in the June 16 school board minutes as saying, “You need experienced negotiators with this contract,” adding, “This is not a time for somebody to be learning.” Mr Nanavaty had participated previously on the paraprofessionals contract talks twice, and secretaries’ contract talks once.

“As far as the number of Board of Education members who may participate, that is entirely up to the local board of education,” Mr Dugas said. “The prevailing wisdom is it should most certainly be less than a quorum, and generally it is limited to a small number given the exponential difficulty of coordinating schedules, particularly in the summer. I also find that the fewer people at the table, the more smoothly negotiations tend to go.”

Informed of the legal restrictions limiting his board members to a single observer, Mr Kortze separately called CABE and was given similar information, which he shared with his board during a June 25 meeting. During that meeting, Mr Gersten read from the district’s contract negotiation guidelines, citing Section 5.2, which provides: “...(the BOE)... may, if it so desires, utilize the services of outside consultants and may call nonprofessional and lay representatives to assist in the negotiation.”

“Since at the end of the day the BOF [Board of Finance] will be intimately involved in the ultimate budget authorization, it would make sense to introduce us to process as early as possible so as to ‘set the table’ for what is and what not be possible in a financial sense,” Mr Gersten wrote in a memo requesting to be added to the observer team. “If the BOE [Board of Education] is sincere in its quest for the best, fairest and most economical result in these negotiations it should be encouraged to invoke Section 5.2 and permit multiple BOF representatives to attend and participate in the process.”

In the end, Mr Kortze said he heard no justifiable reason in either the open or closed session to deny his board the extra slot as observers, or the extra voting member from the school board.

“There’s no reason not to add one or two people. We’re not talking about adding 30,” Mr Kortze said. “Having three members of the Board of Ed would not constitute a quorum, and adding Marty [Gersten] and Kathy [Fetchick] to the negotiating team on behalf of the town would bring a lot of benefits in terms of picking up the slack and bringing different perspectives to the table.”

Ultimately, Mr Kortze said, everyone should be focused on what could bring about the ultimate benefit for the people of Newtown.

Ms McClure did not immediately respond to calls for comment.