Teachers get Teachers with masters or professional degrees will get a 3 percent bonus for the first year of a two-year contract, but the union will have to go back to the bargaining table to negotiate whether the bonus will be paid in the future.
1-year bonus
They get the 3 percent for the
first year but will have
to negotiate for moreBy Rosemarie Bernardo
rbernardo@starbulletin.comThe Hawaii Labor Relations Board ruled yesterday that a disputed bonus pay provision in the public school teachers' two-year contract agreement reached last April was for the first year, not the second.
"Though we see it as a partial victory that we got 3 percent, we have a fighting chance to get the other 3 percent," said Joan Husted, executive director of the Hawaii State Teachers Association.
Husted said the HSTA will send a letter to state officials on Monday asking to "get together so we can sit down and begin to work on the implementation of this decision."
Gov. Ben Cayetano said the ruling validates his administration's position that the state agreed only to a one-year bonus when the state and teachers settled a three-week teacher's strike last year.
"We had always said that the bonus agreement was for one year only, and after examining the facts, the board validated this," Cayetano said. "For reasons unknown to us, the language HSTA put into the contract regarding the bonus did not represent the agreement that we had reached."
Husted disagreed.
"I feel personally angry. I know what the language says. It's always frustrating that others don't see it with the same clarity," she said.
Husted said it was too early to decide whether the union would appeal the ruling.
The board ruled that the contract agreement last April included a "provision to pay a 3 percent differential for teachers holding a professional or Master's of Education degree estimated to cost the DOE $6 million from excess impact aid funds." The HSTA, made up of 13,000 members, insisted the agreement was for two years.
The dispute held up the raises and other bonuses negotiated in the teacher's contract until it was submitted to the labor board for a decision and the state agreed not to appeal the labor board's findings.
According to the board's findings, "because the costs for a second year were not submitted to and funded by the Legislature, no commitment to pay for a second year can be imposed upon the agreement of April 23, 2001, without potentially threatening the validity of all cost items in the contract."
Nearly 6,500 teachers qualify for the bonuses at a cost of about $9.7 million.
The HSTA said teachers could see the bonuses in their pay late this spring.
Cindy Werkmeister, a teacher at Farrington High School, said: "It's kind of bittersweet. You're happy you got it but you're frustrated." Werkmeister said the bonus will help her pay for repair work on a house she recently purchased in Palolo with her husband, Scott.
Hearing of the board's decision last night, schools Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto said bonuses for the first year already have been factored into the budget, but the financial implications for the second year remain unclear. The order calls for the bonuses to come from excess federal impact aid, which the state receives for educating military dependents, among other things.
"(The order) says for the second year we are to negotiate with the excess federal funds we have," she said. "We don't know how much excess federal funds we have, so on that one we'll just have to see how much comes in, and then we'll do it."
Star-Bulletin reporter Lisa Asato and the Associated Press contributed to this report.