According to the National Council on Teacher Quality New Mexico teachers are among the most poorly paid in the nation. Starting pay in the Las Cruces district is already ten thousand dollars less than the El Paso Independent Schools. But it appears pay in Las Cruces will be cut even further due to a budget crisis.
The budget shortfall this year in Las Cruces Public Schools was 7.6 million dollars. To deal with the crisis the district instituted a hiring freeze, cut the number of assistant principals and even reduced the number of bus stops.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b46Bb7a74B8&feature=youtu.be
But another cut is proving more controversial because it violates the district’s contract with teachers. The contract says teachers get three paid days of professional development to prepare for the school year and get up to speed with the evolving state curriculum. But the district eliminated those days representing a 1. 6 percent pay cut for teachers.
Las Cruces National Education Association president Patrick Sanchez says Las Cruces teacher salaries have not kept up with the cost of living-and the 1.6 percent pay cut adds insult to injury.
"Take me for example; I am a twenty five year teacher so I am on step 25 on this salary schedule. If indeed we go to a three day furlough.. I will be at the level of a fourteen year teacher. I will have lost eleven years basically.” Sanchez says.
“I have played by the rules, I have went furthered my education, I got a masters degree. It doesn’t seem unfair to ask that we be compensated fairly or at least indexed to that cost of living.”
Sanchez says there’s something worse than the pay cut; the district violated the teachers’ professional contract to do it. Sanchez says the National Education Association teachers’ union was still in the thick of negotiations with the district when the furlough days were approved in the budget.
“We found out from the newspaper. I think the headline was district hands three day furlough to employees. What was weird about that we had a collective bargaining agreement at the negotiating table at the time. So, not cool” Sanchez says.
Las Cruces Public Schools superintendent Stan Rounds contends the furlough days are an acceptable part of the budget. But he adds the district and the NEA are still at the negotiating table.
“ I don’t see any incongruity with what is happening in the negotiations” Rounds says.
In the Las Cruces public schools staff salaries and benefits account for 91 percent of district spending. Rounds says each furlough day will save the district $700,000. He says taking away professional development days is not ideal, but without those cuts, the district would have to terminate as many as 30 teachers.
“It is better to share the pain if you will of a percent and half reduction with three days worth of furlough you know if you don’t work and you are not paid for it and everybody is in that mode. To me that seems more fair than reaching into the organization and reducing, riffing teachers, riffing educational assistance or others. When you riff people they lose their jobs completely.” Rounds says.
Critics of the New Mexico education overhaul like Sanchez and the National Education Association are calling the test-driven policies of the Martinez administration a war on teacher. But Sanchez says this violation is the first major blow originating at the district level.
“Our own district out of the blue is saying here is your 1.6 percent cut. So this is a little bit different” Sanchez says.
The furlough days only represent 2.1 million dollars of the 7.6 million budget short fall. Rounds says he had to make a lot of difficult choices.
“How can you negotiate resources you don’t have.” Rounds says.
Neither Sanchez nor Rounds were willing to offer specifics about ongoing negotiations. But Las Cruces Public School board President Maria Flores says the number of furlough days may be reduced to two instead of three.
Sanchez says the NEA has not ruled out legal action against the district for the contractual violation.
