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| Date: | February 14, 2011 | | Contact Name: | Sandra Whalen | | Contact Phone: | 651-296-5238 | | Contact Email: | sandra.whalen@senate.mn | | For Immediate Release | |
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| Education pay freeze bill offers more than meets the eye |
The Minnesota Senate recently passed Senate File 56, a bill that addresses school district budget concerns with realistic responses and is designed to save the jobs of many Minnesota teachers. Unfortunately, the good that this measure could do is caught up in a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding.
Right now, school districts are wrestling with state mandates and teacher union demands. As a result, our children are losing good teachers. This proposal, which has been endorsed by the Minnesota School Boards Association and the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, takes away several state mandates, allowing local districts to decide how best to allocate their staffing dollars as well as putting on hold pay increases for two years for all school employees – the issue fought so hard by the teachers’ union.
Specifically, the legislation lifts a mandate that says certain staff is “off limits” for cuts and another that protect staff development funds, and ends penalties to school districts for not rushing to conclude contract negotiations by an arbitrary date. By eliminating these three requirements, school districts are given more budgeting flexibility.
The bill also postpones automatic staff salary increases for the next two years. However, it does not prevent school districts from paying increased health insurance costs for staff. This temporary hold is merely a continuation of current salary levels in public schools. No more threats of closing down schools with strikes if labor demands aren’t met. And most importantly, no more large-scale layoffs of newly-hired teachers to pay salary increases for remaining staff.
The state payment to public schools is 37 percent of the state’s general fund budget or $13 billion this two-year budget cycle. The projected deficit is $6.2 billion, the largest in state history. We cannot continue to do thing the way they have always been done. This bill challenges the status quo and puts the public first: the student, the parent and the taxpayer.
I am committed to putting Minnesota students first, and I understand that our students benefit from decisions made by parents, teachers and local school officials. I support this legislation because it hands the decision-making power back to those people, protects teachers from large layoffs and guards classroom sizes.
