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Good afternoon, CTA members.

CTA/SDPBC have concluded the 2022-2023 Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations. 

If everything goes smoothly, ratification will be able to take place in the coming weeks and conclude by mid-October.

A caveat to all of this is the pending approval of our salary settlement agreement by the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE).  It is now required by law that the FLDOE review and approve all public school educator salary/raise settlements.  We do not know how fast they will do this.  We do not even know if they will approve or reject the agreement. 

Once a salary agreement is made between a union/school district, approved by the school board, ratified by the membership of the bargaining unit, and approved by FLDOE (this is the legally prescribed sequence of events that must take place)…payment of said salary agreement (the raise portion) cannot be paid until final evaluation scores are provided to the SDPBC by the FLDOE (student growth scores typically are not final for the previous year until late Oct/early Nov).  This means best case scenario, bonuses may be able to be paid within a few weeks of ratification.  However, your raises legally cannot be paid until sometime in November.

Below is a link to all of the substantive changes that were agreed to by both parties. There are additional document formatting/grammatical corrections that were made. Those items will be included in upcoming notices to all T-Bargaining Unit members, prior to the ratification vote (ratification dates TBD in the next 2-3 weeks, following the approval of this agreement by the school board at their upcoming September 21 meeting).

http://www.palmbeachcountycta.org/cta-sdpbc-cba-settlement-agreements-2022-2023

Below is a summary of each substantive settlement agreement item.

1.  Permits job-sharing as an option for employees after 1 year of employment with the SDPBC (reduced from 2 years). Increases the number of employees within the T-Bargaining Unit who are allowed to occupy job sharing positions to 5% (up from 1%).

2.  Clarifies that job-sharing partner teachers and their administration determine field trip related responsibilities together.

3.  Replaces the term “high needs school” with “Priority Support School”.

4.  Alters procedures for staffing newly opened schools within the district.

5.  Creates a joint CTA/SDPBC committee to make recommendations to the superintendent regarding “certified school counselors and their duties and assignments”.

6.  Creates a joint CTA/SDPBC committee to make recommendations to the superintendent regarding “supervision duties that affect the start/end of duty day”.

7.  Creates a joint CTA/SDPBC committee to make recommendations to the superintendent regarding “compensatory (comp) time”.

8.  ESE Differentiated Pay Supplement of $1,000 for specific ESE/ESE related job titles.

9.  Increases the potential maximum Differentiated Pay Supplement to a total of $1,200.

10.  Increases the daily pay rate for Permanent Substitute Employees, effective July 1, 2022, to $201.03.

11.  Allows for the recognition of years of experience and corresponding pay levels (max 25 years) on the New Hire Salary Placement Schedule (NHSPS) for rehired retirees. Existing rehired retirees will have their years recognized and their pay adjusted to the correct placement on the NHSPS for the 2022-2023 school year.

12.  Extends the existing Reading Endorsement one-time stipend to include Elementary educators (previously only Secondary educators were eligible). Additionally, the requirement that anyone eligible to receive the $1,103 supplement moving forward as a result of this new language must maintain the Reading Endorsement on their certification for no less than 5 years from the time of payment. Failure to do so may result in the SDPBC retrieving the supplement.

13.  2022-2023 Salary Adjustments 

           *See table included in the settlement document via the link provided above.

           **See link below to FL Statute 1012.22 that explains the rules that govern

              salary/raises for public school educators in Florida.

           ***The settled upon raise amounts originally proposed by the district were off by

              1/10^th of a percent in error (a number of employees were not included in the

              original cost/raise calculations and now are – reducing the percentages by 1/10^th

              of a percent).

14.  Adjusted New Hire Salary Placement Schedule (NHSPS) with legally required new minimum salary and ripple effect to all other NHSPS levels.  Additionally, this section reestablishes the gap in starting pay for certain SLP, School Psychologist, Occupational/Physical Therapists, Audiologists and ROTC employees that existed prior to the increase to the minimum starting salary of $47,500 two years ago.  Existing employees in these job titles who were recently hired at the lower rate will have their salaries adjusted to the correct level for the 2022-2023 school year.

15.  Updated language describing new min/max salaries, based on this settlement agreement.

***All increases to salaries are retroactive to the start of the current school year***

State Laws and Your Raises

As I mentioned in the previous email describing the district's raise offer, state laws govern and force the hands of both the SDPBC/CTA when it comes to salary negotiations. Below is the link to Florida State Statute 1012.22. Please review the statutory language if you are not familiar with it. It is a decade long conglomeration of horrible provisions that restrict salary negotiations in many ways (almost exclusively to the detriment of PSC/veteran educators).

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=1000-1099/1012/Sections/1012.22.html

Language that was added to FL ST 1012.22 at the end of last school year effectively banned the Grandfather Supplement for PSC educators contained in last year's settlement moving forward (the supplement level agreed to last year still exists and will remain in effect in perpetuity - it just can not be increased).  CTA proposed increasing this supplement during this year's negotiations and the SDPBC cited the new statutory language. 

As it stands right now, there is no known legal remedy for the pay disparity and gap written into law two years ago regarding Annual and PSC contracts.

All negotiation sessions will be recorded and archived on the SDPBC Labor Relations website page. Click the following link to view recorded sessions after they occur. It typically takes a few days for the SDPBC to upload the videos of each session.

https://www.palmbeachschools.org/careers/compensation_and_job_information/collective_bargaining_agreements/cta_bargaining_videos

In Solidarity,

Justin Katz

CTA President

Apologies in advance for any typographical errors.

This email and the content/link contained herein are for CTA MEMBER use only. 

DO NOT copy/paste/share images of this email OR the links.