Approved: Salary agreement between union and school district ratified

The School Board of Alachua County (SBAC) held a special meeting Friday to ratify a salary agreement with the Alachua County Education Association (ACEA).

Alachua County Public Schools released a tentative salary agreement in December which included an all-around salary increase of 3.5% for instructional and non-instructional personnel in addition to the automatic “step” increase — usually around 1% — that employees receive at the beginning of each school year if they completed half of their contract the prior year.

ACEA held its ratification vote for the salary agreement on Wednesday. The total number of yes votes was 2,230 and the total number of no votes was 31.

The board unanimously ratified the negotiated agreement between the board and ACEA for Education Support Professionals (ESPs), or non-instructional employees, for the 2023-2026 school years. Board members also unanimously ratified the negotiated agreement for instructional personnel, or teachers, for the 2021-2024 school years.

A 3.5% raise will be applied across the district’s salary schedules to all employees in addition to their step increase, if applicable. The raise is retroactive to July 1, 2023, depending on when each employee’s contract took effect. For example, if an employee’s contract for 2023-2024 started on the first day of school, the raise would be retroactive to that date. This means the raise employees have not yet received this school year will be paid out through one check.

Tentative agreement: Alachua County School District, teachers' union reach tentative salary agreement

These decisions come after the school district failed to meet the state’s October deadline for negotiating teacher salaries.

Financial concerns expressed

Board member Tina Certain voted against the adoption of the salary schedules for the 2023-2024 fiscal year. She expressed concerns with funding, specifically the district’s reliance on Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds from the federal government, which will end in September 2024. About 100 employees are funded by ESSER grants, she said, and their future must be considered.

“I can’t responsibly vote for a budget amendment that lacks a clear, sustainable funding plan for both this year and the future,” Certain said. “Our staff deserves better. However, the superintendent has not presented us with a feasible plan to finance what he proposes, neither for this year nor for the long term.”

The superintendent was legally required by state law to present the plan by October and, although now three months past the deadline, Certain said they have not seen a concrete budget or viable plan for the proposed changes in the salary schedule.

She said the proposed pay increase — combined with termination of ESSER funds, increasing operating costs and unpredictable state funding — could lead to the district dipping into reserves to balance the budget, which isn’t sustainable long-term.

“The superintendent’s approach appears to be a hasty response to the criticism over his own salary increase, focusing more on securing his financial future than the district’s needs,” Certain said. “His failure to present a financially sound plan to the board indicates negligence of his duties to our staff.”

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Board Chair Diyonne McGraw expressed trust in the district’s financial team and said she didn’t want the public to think the board was wastefully spending: She wouldn’t vote on something if she didn’t think they had the funding to proceed. McGraw also said current staff has taken the time to go through budget documents and clean up a lot from prior administrations.

“I don’t want the public to think that we’re such in dire straits, and I hear what my colleague is saying, but we’re in a period, too, of cleaning up when it comes to finances,” said McGraw. “If we continue to concentrate on what’s in the past, we’re never going to move forward.”

She said a workshop related to funding and ESSER funds is needed because the funds were distributed but not tracked; they were put under finance instead of being a grant.

ACEA President Carmen Ward said the district ended its fiscal year with a fund balance of $35 million and that she trusts the superintendent’s recommendations as well as the district’s financial staff.

“We came to an agreement and the people have spoken that 99% of them agree with our agreements and want for this ratification to pass,” Ward said.

Certain clarified that her comments had nothing to do with trusting Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Keith Birkett and other financial staff, but warned the district to be cautious moving forward and to plan instead of moving haphazardly.

“I don’t want my comments to be misconstrued as that I don’t support the work of our staff, of our financial team that’s here currently, or those — anyone who’s left in the past,” she said. “I also would be irresponsible if I did not sound the alarm in to say we have to be very careful with how we spend money.”

The cost of the pay increase to all employees, Certain said, is more than $6 million. Of that, around $1.7 million is from the state’s Teacher Salary Increase Allocation (TISA), meaning the remainder comes out of local, district funds.

The union had been negotiating with the district since October 2022 and originally proposed a 10% raise over two years with employees receiving a 5% raise this school year and another 5% next school year, Ward said in a prior interview with The Sun.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: ACPS school board salary negotiation