More than six months of negotiations ended in impasse Monday between the Teachers Association of Lee County and the School District.
The biggest sticking point was that a majority of TALC members are not eligible for state-funded raises, amounting to an increase of $2,340 for full-time classroom teachers with 10 years or more of Florida public education experience.
TALC wants $2,320 in locally funded increases for those ineligible teachers and other personnel, like counselors, nurses and others, plus itinerant teachers and classroom teachers with less than 10 years of experience.
TALC president Kevin Daly explained the union’s stance.
"Our attitude is that, the state has given money for this group of people. We think it's only fair and appropriate for everybody else to get that much money, right?"
Also at issue is the district’s offer of $500 in performance pay for teachers ranked effective or highly effective. TALC would be satisfied with $300 in performance pay incentive if there was also a raise of $1,000 for every educator represented by the union. And while the district offered an increase in starting salary of $800, TALC wants $1,000. The membership was polled and they didn’t go for the deal.
"74% of the people that responded… told us we should not take the deal. In my ninth time doing this as the president of TALC, this is the least amount of money that I've really sought for raises," Daly said.
"But you know, when you have the district who can approve $19 million in bonuses for the second year in a row, and you have the district hiring attorneys and a three-plus-something billion dollar budget, the idea that they can't find 7 or 8 or $9 million to make everybody whole and make it fair and appropriate is just something that I have a hard time accepting."
The next step is for both sides to present their cases in hearings before a magistrate, who will make a recommendation to the school board, which has the ultimate say.
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