QUOTE(gingerkid @ Feb 19 2007, 01:32 PM) 
Cost of living or raise is sort of semantic. In private industry, a businesses costs are considered before they consider how much money is left over for raise/COLA/whatever. In schools there is a formula they use to come up with what they call a COLA. The state doesn't ever give districts extra money for giving a different sort of increase called a raise. Earlier I read that the state also doesn't consider any of the schools new costs. So, it seems, economically speaking that if you give 100% of what the state calls a COLA to teachers there's nothing left over for anything or anyone else.
When you're talking about disagreeing because someone sneered at you or lied, in your opinion, it sounds kind of whiny. It also sounds pretty mean when you keep going after the school board members personally when they are just trying to give information from a different perspective.
My kids are in secondary school. Some teachers are talking about their disagreements in class. Some are talking on the phone during class about it. Not so much lately though. Maybe impasse will help. I agree with 39degrees that going to factfinding should help both sides to get to a common set of facts.
When you're talking about disagreeing because someone sneered at you or lied, in your opinion, it sounds kind of whiny. It also sounds pretty mean when you keep going after the school board members personally when they are just trying to give information from a different perspective.
My kids are in secondary school. Some teachers are talking about their disagreements in class. Some are talking on the phone during class about it. Not so much lately though. Maybe impasse will help. I agree with 39degrees that going to factfinding should help both sides to get to a common set of facts.
There is a significant difference between COLA and private business raises. Private industries, that do not hire union workers, have every right to pay anybody, for any reason, more/less what they want; however, state and gov't agencies have many categorical funds, whether folks are in the military, state/county/fed employees they are assigned funds for those different categories by the budgets setforth by the appropriate gov't agencies. They are argued and voted upon by committees and sometimes the legislature. There are so many budgets no one can know all of the information. Then they add more bureaucrats to figure out how to split it up, and those folks get the enormous bucks plus per diem.
For example, last year 28 million was given to school districts (not sure if it was state/fed. funding; districts get both) to create supports for students with IEPs re: remediation and test taking strategies. Those funds were divided by need and given to the districts to disseminate on an as needed basis. After having gone through several bureaucracies the special ed students at my site were offered the same supports as the non-IEP students. I have no idea what happened to the funds or how much they were or if our site received dime one.
The COLA is designed to cover all aspects of the educational process, including salaries. Teachers rarely get the entire COLA allocated to them. Our last contract was negotiate to give teachers 75% (of COLA) over three years. That was substantial. At that time, Folsom-Cordova was way, way down on the salary as compared to the 12 neighboring, equally funded and comparable districts.
When contract negotiations began last summer we asked for less than 100%. Our team decreased that percentage even further when the district gave us their first, last and final offer of 5.25% (however we wanted to break it up), the unit members (faculty) said no way, the district came back with the same offer and it was stalemate.
A raise is over 100% of the COLA.
