Teachers protest outside D91 after salary negotiations resume
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IDAHO FALLS — One hundred thirty teachers and supporters gathered outside of the Idaho Falls School District 91 administration office Tuesday evening, sporting red shirts and waving signs in opposition to a proposed wage freeze offered by the district.
The protest follows a breakdown in negotiations Thursday, when teachers walked out of the negotiating room after receiving an offer for a 0% raise from the district’s bargaining team.
“We started at a zero point. Last week in the district, they wanted to give us nothing. We’ve received zero raise,” said Jake Snarr, Idaho Falls Education Association lead negotiator and a band director at Taylorview Middle School.
Superintendent Karla LaOrange said the contract negotiations are the continuation of a process that began in September.
“We’re trying to help improve things for teachers so that they can better meet the needs of students. We’ve made a lot of progress there and have tentative agreement on 16 different items — so that’s a lot,” she said. “Then, last week, we started our financial negotiations.”
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Teachers expressed their frustration with the district’s starting proposal to provide no wage increase during a time of rising rent, cost of living and inflation — particularly when the state is providing a one-time $3.14 million payment in gap funding that was not included in the district’s budget before its recent cuts.
“We have a lot of money coming in — that gap funding coming in — basically have $7 million on the table, above what we had last year in discretionary money, in savings from insurance and high allocations, and in the gap funding, so to come in and say teachers are worth $0, it was pretty hard,” Idaho Falls Education Association President Julie Nawrocki said.
Both sides met again Monday afternoon, where the Idaho Falls Education Association negotiation team made an opening offer of a 5% raise, “an increase to the extracurricular stipend schedule … and memorandums of understanding calling for $150,000 (total district-wide) in leadership pay (at $30 an hour), a $250 one-time payment in November” and asking for the retention of four clerical positions and a graduation advocate position at Idaho Falls and Skyline High Schools, along with two resource room full-time employees, according to teacher’s association documents.
Following a 20-minute caucus or pause where the administration and the teacher’s association negotiation teams met separately to reach their next decisions, the district countered with an offer of no wage increase while granting “steps and lanes” in the teacher’s salary schedule. Lanes represent increases in pay for level of education, while steps are pay increases for years of experience.
The teacher’s association later returned with an offer for a 4% increase.
“The salary schedule with 4% added is estimated to be a total cost of $37,237,910.28, which includes a district contribution of $5,313,281.11. This district contribution would represent an increase of $623,716.08 over the current contribution,” Snarr wrote in an email to the Board of Trustees on Tuesday.
District Finance Manager Lanell Farmer said the board has prioritized building up the district’s reserve fund, which will reach a projected balance of of $7.5 million on July 1 at the start of the fiscal year.
LaOrange said it is essential the district have sufficient funds in reserve to meet its monthly obligations.
“Our payroll runs about $5.5 to $6 million a month. You have to take that into consideration that we have some money we have to pay the employees first and then get reimbursed,” she said.
But not all the teachers bought into that argument.
“I feel like it’s a really intense situation, and both sides have a lot of good things to offer, but it’s also disappointing to hear teachers being talked about this way. … It’s almost feeling like teachers are being presented as not worth the money that the district has,” said Bailey Reed, a fifth-grade teacher at Westside Elementary.
The board met Tuesday evening to consider the teacher association’s proposal. Both sides are hopeful that a resolution can be reached at a Wednesday meeting, which started at 4:15 p.m. at district headquarters. Trustees Shay Ricks, Paul Haacke and Jeremy Westwood spoke with the teachers outside Tuesday before entering the building in a closed-door session.
