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KREITLOW EXPECTS QEO WILL BE CUT
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 -- 3:00 pm
Posted by Riley Hebert-News Director
A State Senator from our area thinks the legislature will do away with the Qualified Economic Offer for teachers.
The QEO became law in 1993. It prevents school districts and teachers from going to arbitration, forcing teachers to accept no less than a 3.8% increase in wages and benefits.
It's despised by the state teachers union, and the Governor is trying to get rid of it through the upcoming state budget.
"I think the QEO is, in fact, going to go away," Sen. Pat Kreitlow (D-Chippewa Falls) told us this week.
School boards around the state have worried their budgets will tighten if the QEO is removed and revenue caps are left in place.
Kreitlow says the opposite may be true, because, with the current economic climate, arbitrators may force teachers’ salaries down, not up.
"What you're going to see teachers unions are going to find where that once was their floor, it's now their ceiling." Kreitlow predicted. "There's going to be a lot of instances where teachers unions are going to be settling for a lot less than 3.8% because of the tough economy."
The real question will be what’s in the arbitration rules; the Governor doesn’t want arbitrators to consider the local economy, or the financial status of the district.
"You want to make sure the arbitrators have a good set of circumstances to deal with. It's going to be important that local economic conditions be one of the main factors, and not greatly diminshed, as the Governor's proposing," he added.
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