False Harris charge: District caved into a union friendly settlement

In Rusty Harris' editorial, he charges that there are three members of the VUSD school board are controlled by the teachers union. (What an insult to both our fine school board members and the voters of VUSD who elected them!)

Harris writes: VUSD "Caved into a union-friendly settlement of a lawsuit focused on the fact district taxpayers had been subsidizing the teacher association president's pay for decades."

This is twice wrong.

First district tax payers had never subsidized teacher association presidential pay. The VTA paid more than the full cost to the district of a release time president under the old fairly negotiated, MUTUALLY AGREED UPON, collectively bargained contract. The VTA paid slightly more than the cost of a replacement teacher for the president's classroom position.

This MUTUALLY AGREED UPON arrangement was not unique to VUSD. Close to one hundred other school districts in the state used similar language in their contracts. For more than a decade this provision was considered legal and passed all tests. But the VUSD vs VTA lawsuit overturned this precedent not only VTA, but for ALL other school districts and associations in the state. Hardly a "union friendly" thing to do.

Second the amount the school teachers were forced to pay in the settlement was the full amount allowed in the law due to statue of limitation rules.

Now all teachers in our district and every other district in the state are forced to subsidize their school districts for a release time president. Associations must pay not the actual cost to the district for a replacement for the released association president but far more. This lawsuit's success now means the FULL amount of an identical teacher with same place on salary schedule must be paid even when the district hires a much lower price replacement teacher. This is far above and beyond the districts costs. It amounts to a subsidy for the school district taken from the salaries of every teacher in the school district.

This lawsuit means the salary expenses for a school district actually go DOWN when an association president is given release time. This is blatantly unfair and not the intent of the original legislators nor would any fair minded average person think this arrangement fair. Sadly a poison pill was quietly inserted by Republicans into the original legislation that allowed this unfair and undemocratic ruling to be made by the court.

Neither the lawsuit or its settlement were in any way "union friendly." To call them so is to be either ignorant or worse.