Release Time President Compensation lawsuit

Today in the North County Times brings news that the Vista Unified School District has decided to sue the Vista Teachers' Association for the full costs of our release time president. Not a good move for VUSD as the California Education Code clearly says that the VTA only owes the district the costs of the substitute who sits in the classroom of the release time president.

Because the VTA has always paid more than the cost of a substitute, at the end of the day, VUSD will owe a great deal of money to the VTA, not the other way around. Suing VTA was a very foolish move for our school board.

Read the article:

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_8bc1d924-7186-5b1d-8b0b-6ddff33557f1.html

My response to the inevitable inaccurate blogs from our dwindling group of angry friends is printed below in blue. To read their howlings, foamings, and inaccurate rants go here:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_8bc1d924-7186-5b1d-8b0b-6ddff33557f1.html?mode=comments


The Vista Teacher’s Association owes no money to the Vista Unified School District. It is just the reverse. The school district owes a great deal of money to the VTA. Each month that the VTA pays more than the cost of a substitute for its release time president that amount is growing.

The agreement between the VTA and VUSD for the VTA to pay the costs of the substitute for the VTA release time president is based on long standing practices, settled law and the California Education Code [44987.3(d)]. http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=edc&group=44001-45000&file=44930-44988

That section of the California Ed. Code says that in regards to employees on leave for non school business including union activity, “…the school district shall be reimbursed… the compensation paid to the employee's substitute…”

The Ed. Code clear intent is that no California school district shall incur any additional cost from a union leader’s absence from the classroom for union activities nor on the other hand shall the school district benefit from these necessary absences.

The cost of the substitute for the VTA president on leave from her/his classroom has always been fully covered by the VTA. Not for one minute of the history of the VTA release time president has the VTA paid less than the full cost of the substitute. In fact in most years the VTA has paid more.

The Vista school district has illegally benefited financially in the past from the release of the VTA president from his or her classroom in years when the VTA paid in excess of the costs of the substitute for the president. Any money the school district received above and beyond the cost of the substitute (other than small admin costs) will have to be returned to the VTA.

The greatest illegal benefit for the school district has been obtained since last January when the VTA ill-advisedly decided to pay 40% above the cost of the substitute directly into the general fund of the VUSD, rather than into an escrow account to be held untouched until the VTA prevails in court.

It should also be noted that the VTA/VUSD bargaining agreement is not unique to VUSD. The language and concept for a teachers’ association to reimburse a school district for the additional costs incurred by the district for substitutes and only the cost of those substitutes is currently being used in every school district in California whether for full time release president in large districts like VUSD or for part time or as needed releases in smaller districts.

I hope that the VUSD school board is putting money aside for their inevitable loss in their ill- conceived legal action. When this lawsuit is settled, VUSD will end up owing the Vista Teacher’s Associations a great deal of money. I hope they can afford the bill. The school board should have let sleeping dogs lie.