School district, unions quickly come to contract terms

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Teachers and support staff in Charles City presented their initial contract offers to the school district shortly after 2 p.m. on Wednesday.

By 2:30 p.m., the deals were done.

Pending approval by the Board of Education, the Charles City Education Association and the Charles City Community School District Educational Services Association, both have contracts with the school district.

Jason Enke, who presented the initial offer for the educational services association Wednesday, said he appreciates the current negotiation process in Charles City.

“I’ve had the luxury of bargaining 27 contracts, and bargaining in Charles City right now is probably one of the best places to do this,” Enke said. “That’s a credit to the administration and the board. The teams work together and really do what’s best for everybody.”

Last year, the school district implemented a new process called “interest-based bargaining.” Charles City Superintendent Mike Fisher said the process goes away from the conflict bargaining of the past, where the parties come from different positions and essentially argue.

“The bargaining we’re looking at now is we find common values and visions and find a way that we can move together collectively and positively impact kids,” Fisher said. “We’re so used to conflict bargaining. That’s really kind of toxic and harmful, which is what happened for years before I got here.”

Tyler Downing, who presented the initial offer for the education association Wednesday, said the teachers he represents were all pleased with the outcome. He said the new process makes things much easier and less stressful.

“It’s a win-win for both sides,” Downing said. “The open communication is a great way to do that. It’s what’s in the best interest for the district and obviously for the teachers. It makes life easy.”

The tentative agreement with the education association includes a 2.85% increase in the total base package, with a $100 increase in the regular program base and 8% increase in the health insurance premium and a 1.2% increase in the dental insurance premium.

There was no change to the teacher salary supplements base of $4,944. The duration of the contract was changed to reflect year two of a three-year contract.

The tentative agreement with the educational services association support staff includes an 18 cent increase in base wages with step advancement. Additionally, there was new certification and pay language for the classification of C-3 mechanic. The mechanic classification will receive an additional 50 cents per hour for each of the four certifications completed in diesel exhaust fluid, LP bus training, air brakes and bus camera installation and operation.

As with the teachers, the duration of the contract was changed to reflect year two of a three-year contract.

The first two meetings of public body collective bargaining — the initial requests by the employees and the initial offer by the employer — are open to the public. After that, negotiations are conducted in private. The private negotiations lasted less than a half-hour on Wednesday, but Fisher said negotiations have actually been ongoing since last fall.

“We’ve been meeting 2-3 times per month at least since September,” Fisher said. “We operate with trust, cooperation and transparency, and you just saw the culmination of that today.”

Fisher said the negotiating teams have set operating principles and agreements in place, and one of them is “no games,” just numbers, facts and data.

“It’s not all peaches and cream — there are hard conversations that we have to have around tough things,” Fisher said. “We dealt with a really high health insurance increase this year from our health insurance providers.”

“We have a strong team of negotiators for both sides,” Fisher said. “We put this new process in collaboratively, and it was really wonderful.”

Fisher said that the teams managed the tension well this year, and that he tries not to think of Charles City as a district as much as a family.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t have disagreements and we don’t have to work through some sticky things — but it means that we aren’t mean or toxic or unkind,” Fisher said. “We’re going to stay away from that stuff and keep our culture happy.”

State collective bargaining rules adopted three years ago limit negotiations to only base wages for many public employees. For teachers, Iowa law now does not allow collective bargaining for such things as insurance coverage, staff evaluation procedures, voluntary and involuntary transfer rules and staff reduction decisions, along with some others.

Many other items are allowed to be bargained for, but are optional at the discretion of the employer, in this case the Charles City school board. All the parties involved Wednesday said the board’s decision to implement interest-based bargaining with its unions has made contract negotiations much easier in Charles City, compared to some other districts around the state.

“It makes it a way better process to come to an agreement at the end,” Downing said. “It’s definitely a positive in these troubled times that we’re in.”