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DALLAS — New Dallas School Board members who will soon take office caused the Dallas Education Association to rescind its Nov. 22 strike date and reschedule it to Jan. 22.
Three board members, Charles Preece, James Gattuso Jr. and Jeff Thomas — who served on the district’s contract negotiation committee — will be replaced with Edward Dudick Jr., Christine J. Swailes and Susan K. Allen.
“With the new school board members taking their seats in approximately two weeks, it changed the (Dallas Education) Association team’s position on the strike date,” John Holland, Pennsylvania State Education Association region field director, said in an email Friday.
In the same email, Michael Cherinka, the president of the Dallas Education Association, said the union wanted to give the new board members an “opportunity to weigh in on negotiations.”
“After three years of negotiations, we believe that two additional months to reach an agreement is fair to the new board and community,” Cherinka said.
In the meantime, the school board is organizing a roundtable discussion where residents will have the opportunity to ask questions about the contract impasse. Information about the pending meeting will be posted at www.dsdhs.com.
The Dallas School District’s contract with its union expired in August 2015, and both parties began the negotiation process in 2014.
Contract negotiations hit an impasse on issues such as salary, pensions, early retirement and health care.
On Tuesday, the union denied the district’s Oct. 30 offer.
And the union’s Nov. 14 counter-proposal was deemed financially unsustainable by the school board.
That seemed to set the stage for another strike, as promised by teachers, for the day before Thanksgiving. It would have been the second of the school year and third since the labor strife began.
‘Disappointed’
“Overall, the board was disappointed in the DEA offer, since it took 15 days to respond to the board offer and the DEA offer was pretty much the same as previous offers with the main item, the salary matrix,” according to an email from district solicitor Vito DeLuca.
The union’s Nov. 14 offer included a $3 million total increase in salary in annual increments of $450,000 to $550,000, DeLuca said in an email.
Also, the proposal contained $900,000 for retroactive pay for two previous years.
The union’s proposed early retirement incentive program would award teachers with 25 to 35 years of service between 50 to 70 percent of their last year’s salary, which breaks down to $40,500 to $56,700, DeLuca said.
“Holland (of PSEA) touts the reduction to 40 percent of the early retirement incentive payout for all employees who have attained 25 years or more as great savings for the DASD when in fact it is not,” DeLuca’s email stated.
In the 2018-2019 fiscal year with the current teacher roster, there will be 15 employees who could qualify under the proposed union plan; seven would be outside the existing ERI plan, the district’s analysis shows.
The union’s early retirement proposal would cost the district $486,000, according to the board’s review.
The union also requested unused sick day reimbursement of $65 for every day up to a maximum of 200 days, according to the analysis.
“The board has always believed that two of the factors in controlling health care costs were plan-design changes and an employee contribution to assist in offsetting the cost of health care,” DeLuca’s email stated.
Over the past three years, the Dallas School District averaged nearly $656,000 in over-budgeted health care costs, which exceeds the amount the board can generate through tax increases, the review stated.
The union refuses to participate in a premium sharing health insurance program, but their offer claims to create a projected $175,000 in annual savings.
Under the union’s health care offer, members would use the Commonwealth Health System discount card, which could create a nearly $325,000 annual savings.
To-date, the union and school board have not scheduled any meetings. The previously scheduled Nov. 15 negotiation session was canceled.
As a result, the union announced it intends to file an unfair labor practice complaint against the Dallas School Board.
