Battle Ground Public Schools has filed a request for “fact finding” with the state Public Employment Relations Commission.
In a news release issued shortly after midnight this morning, the district announced it was asking PERC to “examine information where there is disagreement and provide a non-binding opinion that will advance the bargaining process.”
“Essentially, it is more like an arbitration where the arbitrator decides the resolution, but in this instance it is merely a recommendation,” PERC Executive Director Mike Sellars said.
The process, laid out in state law, is used infrequently, Sellars said. The Grandview School District requested fact-finding in 2016, and prior to that there had not been a fact-finding investigation since 1994.
But how this latest chapter in the ongoing saga of contract negotiations could affect the first day of school in north Clark County is unclear. The district has canceled class Tuesday, but offered no hints on how long the fact-finding process could take. State law specifies that if the dispute is not settled within ten days of the appointment of a fact finder, they should recommend a settlement to both parties. That settlement, however, is a recommendation only.
The district and its union have been at odds over the basics of the district’s budget for some time now. The district says bargaining teams for the district and Battle Ground Education Association are $4.7 million, or 8 percent, apart in their offers.
The district’s latest offer would add $6.6 million or an increase of 11.6 for teacher compensation this year compared to last year, according to the district. The union’s proposal would add $11.3 million or an increase of 19.6 percent for teacher compensation this year.
“At this point, the district believes the parties are deadlocked on the fundamental issue of providing resources for employee compensation and the legislation implementing the (school funding) decision,” the district said in the announcement.
As Evergreen teachers were celebrating their newly adopted contract Sunday night, Linda Peterson, president of the teachers union, told the Columbian they were still “talking budgeted dollars and finances.”
“The district has chosen their priorities and it’s not educators,” she said. “We show the district where money is available for educators’ salaries and they counter with other costs that must be covered with those monies.”
Tacoma Public Schools took similar action last Friday, The News Tribune reported, to similar frustration from its union president, Angel Morton.
“It’s a fact-finding hearing, and it takes up to a month to get the answers, and it’s a nonbinding situation,” Morton told the newspaper. “And that is all I know.”
