ANALYST: TEACHERS 1, SCHOOL 0
Monday, June 1st, 2009 -- 11:23 AM
Wisconsin teachers can have their cake and eat it to under the budget passed on to the legislature last week.Despite massive cuts elsewhere, WEAC, the powerful teachers union, largely got what it wanted.
The qualified economic offer (QEO) will be in place for one more year; it will expire in July 2010. In the meantime, local unions will be able to take advantage of new, teacher-friendly arbitration rules.
"The changes to arbitration will go into effect right away," explains Dale Knapp of Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, "so, even if a district would go to arbitration, in that arbitration, the arbitrator couldn't put extra weight on the fact there are tightened revenue caps and economic conditions."
There?s also a clause requiring both sides to agree to go to arbitration. "If I was negotiating on the teachers' side, I would simply hold off until 2010 when the QEO goes away," he says.
Knapp says, while the education funding portion of the budget may make teachers happy, the numbers won?t add up for local districts.
"Revenue limits and QEO don't line up. Year after year, your revenue limits (are) going up 2%, and the QEO allows compensation to go up 4%. This is really going to exacerbate that," Knapp notes.
The budget proposal still must pass the full legislature and be signed into law by Gov. Jim Doyle.
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