School Board Attorney Fires Back at SVEA Leader’s News Release

Saucon Valley School Board attorney and chief negotiator in the district’s ongoing contract impasse with its teachers’ union, Jeff Sultanik, fired back at a “fact sheet” released Saturday by Saucon Valley Education Association chief negotiator Rich Simononis.

In an emailed response to it Monday, Sultanik called the press release “disingenuous” and said Simononis “has never cared about honoring tentative agreements or even reading the district’s proposals.”

Sultanik also announced that the school board has temporarily disbanded its three-member negotiating committee, which was made up of board members Ed Inghrim, Ralph Puerta and Susan Baxter.

He said the decision to disband the bargaining team was made “as the result of the current bargaining team not being successful in negotiating a successor contract for almost four years.”

“The board believes that working as a committee of the whole it can more effectively communicate with Mr. Sultanik, who is the chief spokesperson and negotiator for the school board,” he added.

Sultanik’s latest statement is part of a back-and-forth public relations battle that is being waged by both sides–the school board and the teachers–following a series of events earlier this month.

The drama began after the deadline expired for teachers to accept the bottom-line contract offer the school board made to them in late February.

On the day of the deadline–April 10–the SVEA requested a last-minute five-day extension in order to schedule a full membership vote on the offer.

That request was denied by a 2-1 vote of the school board’s bargaining committee, and according to a statement from Sultanik in a Morning Call article published Monday, that split vote is another reason for the temporary disbanding of the committee.

On April 14, the full school board voted 5-4 not to extend the deadline to the following day. That vote occurred after the board was presented with 150 signed petitions from parents requesting an extension of the deadline.

At their meeting April 15, teachers by a 2-1 majority voted in favor of a strike authorization, which paves the way for a possible walkout. They also symbolically rejected the Feb. 26 bottom line contract proposal.

Sultanik subsequently released a statement in which he posited that a contract settlement does not seem “remotely achievable in the foreseeable future.”

The SVEA and the school board have been negotiating a new contract for more than three years, and teachers have been working without a contract since June 30, 2012.

Saucon teachers last went on strike in the fall of 2009, and before that struck in 2008 and 2005.

An ongoing, non-scientific Saucon Source poll that asks readers to take a side in the dispute shows a majority favoring the school board.

With 68 votes cast as of Tuesday, the school board is supported by 78 percent of poll-takers, teachers are supported by 13 percent, and nine percent haven’t taken a side.

Sultanik disputed the points made in Saturday’s latest SVEA news release from Simononis as follows:

SVEA has done everything they could do to avoid a work stoppage…

This is not true. If the union really wanted to avoid a work stoppage, it would have gone to its membership immediately after the Feb. 26, 2015 presentation by the state mediator of the board’s bottom line proposal. The leadership of the union has done everything to shield its membership from the truth in the negotiations process. Further, if the association was so keen on getting to a contract settlement and avoiding a strike, why did other association leadership engage in a wholesale repudiation of all of the collective-bargaining and tentative agreements that took place prior to May 19, 2014 which resulted in the pending bad faith bargaining complaint against the union?

It is well documented that these “talks” have been going on for four years. In the past six months, the school board has refused over and over again to actually sit down and meet with the team to discuss language and other issues.

This is not true. The last face to face bargaining session took place on March 6, 2015. Though it is true that after March 6 the association wanted to bargain changes to the board’s bottom line proposal, the board refused to negotiate from its bottom line proposal before the state mediator (it otherwise would not have been a bottom line proposal under those circumstances).

As of April 16, SVEA has been informed that no one from the school board will be at any negotiations sessions. The board is opting to send its lawyer and business manager to continue over three years of non-negotiation.

The school board has temporarily disbanded its bargaining team as the result of the current bargaining team not being successful in negotiating a successor contract for almost four years. The board believes that working as a committee of the whole it can more effectively communicate with Mr. Sultanik, who is the chief spokesperson and negotiator for the school board.

Prior to the board refusing to extend the offer, SVEA was informed, “…any extension might be contingent of the EA Bargaining Committee’s willingness to recommend the settlement.” Another example of games that are being played behind the scenes that most people are unaware of.

Speaking of games, Mr. Simononis informed the state mediator as of 1 p.m. on April 10 that he would not recommend the board’s bottom line proposal to the membership, but at 4 o’clock the school board was informed by the mediator that Mr. Simononis would recommend the union approve the Feb. 26 proposal in return for the extension. Mr. Simononis never informed his membership or the public that he was willing to recommend the now withdrawn Feb. 26 proposal when the association voted on the withdrawn proposal last Wednesday.

The latest offer the school board presented allows teachers to take graduate level classes at Muhlenberg College. How can the board include something like that, when Muhlenberg College does not offer graduate level programs?

The now withdrawn Feb. 26 proposal allows the bargaining unit members to take graduate-level courses at places where graduate courses are given, so long as the graduate study committee approves them. Since Mr. Simononis was willing to recommend the now withdrawn proposal to the membership, we are wondering why he is now attacking that proposal.

The school board posted links on the school district’s website comparing local school districts. But what most people do not know is that the teachers at Saucon Valley have not been credited with their years of service over the last couple of contracts–something that has not happened at most districts. For example, a teacher that has worked 13 years at Southern Lehigh would be paid on Step 13. A teacher that has been working at Saucon Valley for 13 years is being paid for eight years of service, not 13.

It is not unusual for an individual who is placed on a district salary schedule to not have all of his or her prior years of experience reflected, nor is it unusual for steps on the salary schedule to not be reflective of years of experience in the entity.

Saucon Valley’s co-curricular activities were frozen for four years in the prior contract. The board is currently demanding another six-year freeze for all of these positions. Making it a total freeze of 10 years.

This was previously agreed to by the association’s leadership and now they wish to rewrite history for many individuals who are not even covered by the union contract. Further, the district is not having any major difficulty in filling its extracurricular positions with highly qualified candidates who wish to help our youth.

Comparing Saucon Valley and Southern Lehigh’s coaching staff pay, Saucon Valley is over $100,000 less then Southern Lehigh.

The district will need to see corroborative evidence of this information, to the extent that it is even relevant. The district believes it is compensating its extra duty positions fairly, and we are once again wondering why Mr. Simononis is raising this when he was going to support the proposal to his membership.

Health Insurance: Saucon Valley is self-insured. Every year for the last five years, the district’s health insurance has decreased.

The district’s health benefit consultant is predicting a seven to eight percent trend in increasing health insurance costs. All bargaining units and employees in the district have moved to higher deductibles and higher employee premium share, while the association seems content to stay with its low deductible and low premium share health benefit program. The association is not even honoring the understanding that its union leadership had with respect to the health benefit program in any of its proposals.

Fund Balance: It is well documented that the school district has not raised school taxes for years, and while doing so has created an excess of $15 million in the fund balance. There has been so much discussion about the fund balance, that at the Nov. 11 school board meeting the board approved $12.2 million to be allocated to different funds.

The fund balance is not for the compensation of teachers or for reoccurring salary expenditures as the union seems to intimate. Fund balances are designed to offset one time expenditures for capital needs, or to deal with short-term funding issues. It is an irrelevant discussion.

Mr. Simononis is being quite disingenuous in issuing this press release. He has never cared about honoring tentative agreements or even reading the district’s proposals. He is now challenging a withdrawn district proposal that he placed in an email to the mediator that he would support to his membership on Wednesday.