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6-22-09 GSCS Testimony A1489, A4140, A4142
Assembly Education Committee June 21, 2009 GSCS Positions on A4140, A1489, A4142: Opposed A-4140, concerning collective bargaining agreements and subcontracting, A-4142, concerning certain disciplinary procedures, collective bargaining, and binding arbitration in public employment, are on the agenda pending introduction & referral. A-1489 prohibits boards of education from charging students a fee to participate in extracurricular activities. Due to very late public notice of the hearing, as well as bills not being available for appropriate review and analysis, GSCS is presenting a compilation of thoughts, including member comments (in quotes below) on bills A4140, A1489, and A4142.

Garden State Coalition of Schools/GSCS

Lynne Strickland, Executive Director

www.gscschools.org

Assembly Education Committee June 21, 2009

GSCS Positions on A4140, A1489, A4142: Opposed

A-4140, concerning collective bargaining agreements and subcontracting,

A-4142, concerning certain disciplinary procedures, collective bargaining,  and binding arbitration in public employment, are on the agenda pending introduction & referral.

A-1489 prohibits boards of education from charging students a fee to participate in extracurricular activities.

Due to very late public notice of the hearing, as well as bills not being available for appropriate review and analysis, GSCS is presenting a compilation of thoughts, including member comments (in quotes below)  on bills A4140, A1489, and A4142.

Overall issues with these proposed bills:

  • Timing

                        Lack of transparency; virtually no public notice

                        No vetting allowed by abrupt process; these major bills require in-depth analysis

                        Economic crisis: bills will cost taxpayers more

  • Instability: Current state of the economy precarious and unstable
  • Mixed Message: District cost-saving measures nullified while legislature tells districts they spend too much
  • No fiscal note; costs to local districts and local taxpayers
  • Effective Immediately

Extremely disruptive

Budgets set for the year

  • Credibility at state level will be out-front issue
  • State mandate-State Pay/Council on Local Mandates
  • Too many unanswered questions outstanding
  • Cap issues – Mandates

A4140 concerning collective bargaining agreements and subcontracting

Will be costly at local level

Efficiency regulations and legislative intent to districts to save money       

Conflict with existing regulations/districts are not allowed to run food services program in deficit

Outsourcing practice has been in legislative effect for approximately 10 years

            State Mandate – State Pay

Mixed message:  “As I read bill A4140 -- for example, it would prevent the district from contracting out custodial services, food services, or bus services, except when the contract is up for negotiations. This will severely limit the ability of a district to reduce costs -- a goal the legislator and county executive superintendent are encouraging… (Camden/K12)”

“(Morris/k12 Regional) …Respectfully, A4140 places extraordinary and unwarranted burdens on school districts that need to find economies.”

“This bill is also unrealistic because sometimes we have too much work for our own men to perform so we have to contract out some work.  Do they think we should hire more custodial and maintenance staff to do the work when we can hardly afford the staff we have? 

Finally there are many areas of dispute here; if school folks maintain ball fields during the school year but the municipal recreation department does it in the summer months does that become our responsibility when it is not our kids playing and not during the school year?  There are unintended implications and consequences here that will have the opposite impact of everything else they are telling us to do.  How can this take place immediately, we are supposed to have all kinds of information about the employees of any contractor who is going to do work for the district and we have already contracted that work for this summer.

 “…(Monmouth/large K8)…Certainly these bills are calculated and targeted at those of us that have outsourced our food services program and our custodial services saving the district over 2 million a year, every year. Without the foresight of the Board of Education to so contract these non-educational services in the past, the district would be in a financial straight jacket today and our instructional technology program would be virtually non-existent! “

“….(Middlesex/K12) regarding the immediate impact to our budgets by bills that are rushed through the legislature at the end of June: additional unplanned expenditure requirements will throw any budget into chaos. Conversely, the limitation on subcontracting will prevent us from large potential savings.  We have had some privatization of our custodial staff for some time now. Additionally, with the requirement that child nutrition be a self supporting enterprise, we are looking to establish a satellite for our elementary school food service where cooking would be limited to one or two elementary kitchens and then delivered to the other schools. A subcontractor would be brought in to assist with this…”

 

A1489 prohibits boards of education from charging students a fee to participate in extracurricular activities.

  • Increases Property Taxes/local taxpayers appreciate participant support of extracurricular activities

                        Budgets already struck for the 2009-2010 fiscal year

Midstream change would either result in cancellation of extracurricular activities and/or staff & program reductions; essentially decimate extracurricular programs in mid-stream

One K12 Regional district will save approximately $210K in local property taxes by instituting extracurricular fees for this coming year. The district did not decide to implement this measure until after it had to cut 18 positions from its staff, 9 of the 18 positions were held by teachers. No fee is asked of student households that qualify for free or reduced lunch.

“This bill would not allow (K12 district/Camden County) to charge an activity fee as it currently does.  The impact of this legislation WILL BE that sports and extracurricular activities will be dropped by the district.  This bill will severely impact extracurricular in this district.”

(K12 Union County/5500 enrollment) I can tell you now that everything said above is also true for us, especially the ban on extracurricular fees.  We'll have no choice but to cut activities, since our budget already relies on these fees to keep the extracurricular programs going.  And we'll have no choice but to lay it at the feet of the state.  We had a "robust" public dialogue about these fees during this year's budget campaign, since they were proposed for the first time for the coming budget year.  Our public knows that we had to do it in order to keep the array of activities available.”

“…local taxpayers appreciate participant support of extracurricular activities.”

“It's really not playing fair to adopt any bills at the end of June that will have an immediate fiscal impact on district budgets that were presented to the public and voted on in April…to do it at the end of June for implementation a week later is ludicrous. “

“We (Essex County K12 district) will absolutely have to curtail programs if we cannot charge a student activities fee.  These programs go beyond athletics, since we charge for any high school activity--from French Club to football.  It is ironic--the union contract requires us to stipend faculty advisors, coaches, etc., but the Legislature wants to take away our ability to provide the programs that provide those stipends.”

“I doubt they realize the reduction in extracurricular activities this will create.”

“…Our district (Middlesex/K12) also charges a fee for extracurriculars. The charge by no means covers the cost in full for participation, but thus far has provided us with enough so that we have not had to cut our programs….We  fully recognize that these are NOT ideal times and have accepted the necessity of collecting these fees…”

Midstream change would either result in cancellation of extracurricular activities and/or staff & program reductions; essentially decimate extracurricular programs in mid-stream.

Districts institute a means test re: affordability for fee via the free or reduced lunch application.

Budgets already struck for the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

 

A4142 concerning certain disciplinary procedures, collective bargaining, and binding arbitration in public employment

  • Unanswered questions/full impact not clear/big bill, requires in-depth analysis

“A4142 -- not sure of the direct impact -- binding arbitration / discipline an employee. …”

“Appears to be a way to increase union impact, control and membership”   “Will be costly”

“Is this an ‘instant tenure’ bill?

“Respectfully, A4140 and A4142 places extraordinary and unwarranted burdens on school districts that seek to discipline unproductive employees (A4142.)”

“…binding arbitration is a topic that needs extensive discussion.   If everything ends in binding arbitration then our legal fees will escalate again.”

“We also release employees every year that are not performing to our expectations. And now they are proposing that these local decisions that predicated upon well- honed local criteria and well-articulated expectations be submitted to binding arbitration? The state legislature clearly speaks with a ‘mixed message’.”

The broad language of this bill would appear to refer to substitute teachers, professionals that we subcontract to do some testing (psychological etc) and other services.  Their fees will increase greatly if they are supposed to supply all of this information or there will simply be fewer willing to provide the services.”