Superintendent urges watch on collective bargaining discussion, legislative action

Spencer school board members have been alerted to speculations that state legislators may once again try to pass a new collective bargaining law, among others, in 2009. As Superintendent Greg Ebeling informed them of this recently, he also encouraged board members to contact area legislators and state legislative leaders in regard to the proposed changes, many of which were outlined during the Iowa Association of School Boards annual convention, held in mid-November in Des Moines.

House File 2645, which was passed by both the House and Senate this past legislative session, but vetoed by Gov. Chet Culver, would have dramatically altered the relationship between Iowa's public employers and their employees. As passed, HF 2645 would have amended Section 9 of the Public Employment Relations Act by modifying the existing mandatory subjects of bargaining, as well as adding new mandatory subjects. It would have also significantly altered various provisions of Iowa Code Chapter 279, the chapter under which teachers of school districts are employed.

"Regardless of how I feel about this," Ebeling said, "I'm really concerned about opening up the scope of bargaining to the point where it could, for example, have the board bargaining" class sizes, early retirement plans and the number of minutes of preparation time people must have. "...Good, bad or indifferent, it stands to affect more than just teachers. It would affect other public employees, such as firefighters and police officers."

"It is a little bit scary for me, as a person who sits at the table and goes through the bargaining process, because some things right now are permissive. That means you don't have to bargain them; you can bargain them, but they're permissive. (The way it is now), if we say, 'Well, that's a permissive thing and we really don't want to bargain that,' we can just say 'no,'" Ebeling added. "...These (proposed changes) would open up the scope, so that everything would be open and negotiable. So, as a board and administrators alike, we need to take a look at what happens to this law this year and try to advocate one way or the other. Because my concern is that if it gets too open, it's going to do some dangerous things to our district -- especially the ability when it comes to budget things and stuff like that, that we may not have any control over."

Board President David Schlichtemeier added, "We're the only state in the union that combines both binding arbitration and open-scope bargaining. It's a deadly combination. ... (This would) just be, 'Open up your checkbook.' It would be a disaster."

Spencer's superintendent also alerted board members to changes proposed for Iowa Code Chapter 279 that would eliminate a teacher's "probationary status" in a district.

"It would mean once they're hired, they're just there. In other words, if they get hired and they're not as good as they should be, and we didn't want to renew their contract, we'd have no ability to do that," Ebeling said. "...So, that is also another very scary part. ... I am concerned about it. I don't know where it's going to go, but I'm pretty sure that they've promised to bring this back in some form. Last year the governor did not sign it. He vetoed the bill. But, whether he can continue to do that or not, I don't know."

It was then mentioned that board members may create a list of work rules for employees, and have them approved and on the district's files by June 1, 2009.

"If you establish work rules, then you don't have to bargain things after the fact. Or you at least start from that point," Ebeling explained.

As the superintendent encouraged board members to not only contact state Rep. Mike May and state Sen. David Johnson in regard to the upcoming collective bargaining and Iowa Code Chapter legislative discussions, Ebeling indicated state Sen. John "Jack" Kibbie "has said that whatever the governor does not support is not coming back. So, they're not going to put a bill on the table that, in his mind, and run it through the Senate unless they know the governor is going to be for it."