When I served on the School Board there were closed meetings to discuss contract negotiations. That’s permitted under Minnesota’s Open Meeting Law. What’s not permitted is to fail to record these meetings for publication after the contracts have been settled. We always turned on a cassette recorder so that our closed meetings were documented. Frank Wanner (the DFT’s President) would then listen to them after the contract was settled to get a better idea what the management side was thinking for future reference. Board members Grover and Cameron surely recall this.
In the latest round of negotiations no one will ever know what took place behind closed doors because no one bothered to record the Board member’s discussions. One board member reported that at the last closed meeting Dr. Dixon kept saying over and over that there would only be a 1% salary bump each year of the contract and that there was nothing else of consequence in the new contract.
On the day the School Board voted on the contract there was a short memo”executive summary” that showed a lot more was in the new contract and that the 1% annual increase had been rounded down for the Board’s benefit. Oh, and the increases in medical costs were glossed over. In other words Dr. Dixon kept his Board in the dark. The School District’s attorney might have grounds to claim I was defaming the Board if I were to use the traditional four letter word usually attached to this kind of deception.
Here’s the contract summary:
Executive summary for 2011 – 2013 DFT contract agreement: Minimal language clean up not tied to monetary or benefit enhancements. These include:
1. Facilitator for Quality Steering committee (P.1,2).
2. Grievances – Representation rights (P.2), Miscellaneous Provisions (P.4).
3. Assignment and transfer removed language Paragraph A. (P.5).
4. New contract years replaced old contract years where appropriate i.e. 2011 -2013.
6. Removed old medical insurance language (P.23, 24, 25).
7. Seniority list posting (P.35).Wage Enhancements:
Salary Schedule increased by 1% for 2011 -2012 and 1.5% for 2012-2013 (P.42, 43).
Co-curricular stipends increased by 1% for 2011 -2012 and 1.5% for 2012-2013 (P.39, 40, 41).
Hourly rates increased by 1% for 2011 -2012 and 1.5% for 2012-2013 (P22, 29).
Split Classroom stipend increased $500 (P.15).Memorandum of Understandings:
Agreed to continuation of Memorandums of Understanding for Elementary
Teacher workday (P.48), Middle School Teacher workday (P.49).
Added a Memorandum of Understanding to involve a joint labor
management committee to review health care costs and make
recommendations (non-binding) for savings and enhancements. Emphasis
will be in the area of health insurance and cost containment (P.57).Attachment: Cost Summary Sheet – pdf –
This little summary is no replacement for the contract which is referred to by all the page numbers mentioned. The Board was never shown the contract they approved. Its no wonder that Art Johnston was so scornful of the process. There was a time that Tim Grover would have been outraged by such treatment. That was before Dr. Dixon’s arrival. Maybe that because they serve mountain oysters in Colorado where the Superintendent hails from.
