*CORRECTION: The Professional Negotiated Agreement between the Little Rock School District and the Little Rock Education Association employees union is in effect for Nov. 1 of this year through Oct. 31, 2018. This article incorrectly reported an incorrect, longer term length based on what was initially negotiated and approved by the association’s membership. Teresa Knapp Gordon, association president, said the term of the agreement was shortened to one year at the request of Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key and with the approval of the association leaders. The change did not require another vote by membership, she said.
A two-year agreement on benefits and grievance procedures between the Little Rock School District and the Little Rock Education Association was finalized by Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key this week, but negotiations are ongoing on possible employee pay raises.
Key signed what is officially referred to as the Professional Negotiated Agreement earlier this week, said Superintendent Mike Poore and the education association president, Teresa Knapp.
The ratification of the new 2017-19 agreement by Key, who acts as the school board in the state-controlled Little Rock district, came in advance of Tuesday's expiration of the 2016-17 employee agreement.
Members of the association, which is a union of district teachers and support-service employees, had approved the 10-page agreement on benefits and grievance procedure in mid-September along with a new certified personnel policies manual. The manual has not been approved by Key.
In addition to the grievance procedure, the new agreement includes terms that provide for the continued $275 a month district contribution toward each employee's health insurance premium.
The agreement also includes provisions calling for the parties to reopen negotiations in each of the two school years 2017-18 and 2018-19 for the purpose of negotiating changes in employee wages and benefits.
Negotiators for the association and district met Tuesday afternoon to discuss the possibility of a pay raise or bonus for employees, Gordon said. The meeting ended without an agreement. Another session is scheduled for the middle of this month.
"But it may be January before we have a resolution," Gordon said, adding that the district has been converting to a state-required data system and has had difficulty producing usable reports on student enrollment.
State funding to a school district is based on student counts. Without reliable enrollment reports, district and association leaders are hindered in calculating how much money would be available for increasing employee salaries.
"It is frustrating," Gordon said about the lack of data.
Poore said in an interview Wednesday that he is going to be patient on any 2017-18 salary decisions to give the district time to determine whether tax revenue to the district is on track to meet projections for this year and to evaluate the impact of a small, one-half percent, projected growth in property tax values over the next year.
District leaders also will monitor student registration for the 2018-19 school year -- which takes place next month -- for trends that could help or hurt the district's state funding.
"We'd like to make sure that our registration process shows that we are off to a good start on our numbers," Poore said. "We need to be really aggressive in the month of December to get families to register and to show that their inclination is to be with the Little Rock School District."
Poore said waiting until the middle of the school year to decide on salary and wage changes is not out of the ordinary.
"It's smart financially," he said, adding that employees deserve increases "but we also have to be good financial stewards."
The proposed certified personnel policies manual, which has been approved by the association membership but not by Key, was two years in the making and contains many of the policies and provisions that were once part of a much longer Professional Negotiated Agreement.
Gordon and Poore have said that Key is waiting to act on the manual until district leaders are able to align the manual and school system policies. The district's policies are in the midst of being revised, based largely on model policies created by the Arkansas School Boards Association.
Metro on 11/02/2017