LAND Oâ LAKES â The collective bargaining process for school districts and their teachers unions can be a drawn out, cumbersome affair in ânormalâ years.
The difficulty level for reaching a wage agreement ratcheted up in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemicâs yet-to-be-realized effects on budgets combined with Gov. Ron DeSantisâ bill to increase teacher salaries created added hurdles.
But according to United School Employees of Pasco President Don Peace, cooperation has ruled the process.
âWeâre in the process of contract ratification,â Peace said during the Pasco County School Districtâs first regular board meeting of 2021. âThatâs a good thing.â
The school district and USEP reached a tentative agreement on salary negotiations Jan. 11. That agreement addressed the 80-20 percentage split of the $13,311,929 in funding Pasco received through the Teacher Salary Increase Allocation program created by the state this summer. That
BARTOW Officials with the Polk Education Association and Polk County Public Schools remain at impasse on what to pay teachers, paraeducators and clerical staff all as those employees continue to work through a pandemic that has landed at least two Lakeland teachers in the intensive care unit with COVID-19.
On Monday and Tuesday, the union and district officials are scheduled to sit down with a special magistrate and present their cases for formal review.
At issue are:
• Increasing paraeducator, secretarial and clerical pay to $10 an hour, which PEA officials said would cost the district an additional $2.2 million. It would also put the district in compliance ahead of schedule with the recently passed Amendment 2, which requires minimum wage be increased to $15 an hour incrementally over the next five years.