One-time bonus should not preclude teachers from getting stable pay hike
Last week, the Clark County Education Association’s executive board sent out a unionwide email that took a hard stance against one-time bonuses. The union expressed concern that the plan put more money in some teachers’ pockets as a one-time benefit but didn’t raise base pay or increase contributions to retirement programs or pension funds.
The union accused the Clark County School District of engaging in “a brazen attempt to undermine our collective bargaining rights and to continue the practice of one-time bonus money.” It continued, “Let us be clear: we are DONE with onetime money in any shape or form.”
CCEA is justified in demanding that onetime bonuses not be used as a substitute for increased stable wages, regular adjustments for inflation and fair contributions to pension and retirement programs.
However, multiple things can be true at once, and the rhetoric seems to ignore the reality that at least one of the major sources of funding being used to offer the bonuses is not renewable and would only be appropriate for a one-time distribution.
According to reporting by the Sun’s Hillary Davis, CCEA has rejected several proposals to provide recruitment and retention incentives for a cluster of schools facing the most significant educational gaps called the Transformation Network. An unsigned draft of an agreement between CCEA and the district obtained by the Sun shows that Transformation Network teachers would get a flat bonus of $20,000 next year, plus smaller “student-outcome incentive” bonuses for each student who achieves certain benchmarks on state exams.
According to a CCSD spokesman, the proposed large bonuses would come from pandemic relief funds, while the per-student rewards would come from general funds.
Pandemic relief funds are only available as a direct result of state and federal COVID-19 pandemic emergency declarations and the passage of several massive one-time funding bills by Congress. Former Gov. Steve Sisolak formally ended the COVID-19 emergency declaration in Nevada nine months ago. President Joe Biden has indicated that he will end the federal emergency declaration May 11. With the pandemic declared over and Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, it is unlikely that Congress will authorize any additional funding for pandemic relief.
Given these realities, it appears that the district is capitalizing on a limited-time opportunity to use COVID relief funds to benefit the teachers. That isn’t a brazen attempt to undermine collective bargaining, it’s a smart move by the district to use a one-time windfall to provide bonuses to teachers who richly deserve it. CCSD should be credited for focusing the funding on teachers in the toughest schools.
Moreover, to the extent it helps recruit teachers, the move might benefit the community for years to come.
That doesn’t mean, nor should it be, the end of the conversation about wages, benefits and collective bargaining. As previously stated, multiple things can be true at once.
By using pandemic relief funds to support one-time bonuses, the district can painlessly help teachers in sore need of additional support. However, nothing in such a move should allow for deferring — for a single minute — the more difficult conversation the district, Clark County and Nevada must have about recruitment and wages for teachers.
Wages, hours and other terms of employment should be collectively bargained, and the CCEA suggests that the Transformation Network bonuses were not. After a half-century of ongoing attacks on employee unions and their collective bargaining power, CCSD should have known better than to draw up the Transformation Network bonus agreements without consulting CCEA and the other unions in the district first. With that said, the union should not allow the absence of a perfect process to be the enemy of an effective short-term solution to putting more money in the pockets of more teachers.
CCSD Superintendent Jesus Jara appears committed to long-term wage increases and sent an email to teachers last week in which he stated unequivocally that “We want to reward you for your dedication to our students — temporarily with these incentives — and permanently by increasing pay across the board at the legislative session’s conclusion.”
Unlike in previous budget cycles, the political winds appear to favor Jara’s optimism.
In his State of the State address last month, Gov. Joe Lombardo proposed a $2 billion increase in state education funding over the next two years. That money is desperately needed to help Nevada catch up to the funding levels of academically high-performing states.
Leaders of the Democrat-controlled Legislature have also called for a $250 million matching fund to incentivize permanent wage increases for teachers and support staff.
Lombardo and legislators of both political parties should set aside their partisan differences and work to make both proposals a reality.
In the meantime, CCEA and other unions in CCSD should tamp down the rhetoric and look for paths to capitalize on Nevada’s short-term pandemic-related windfall while simultaneously holding the state’s and district’s feet to the fire over long-term wage increases.
It appears that the district is capitalizing on a limited-time opportunity to use COVID relief funds to benefit the teachers. That isn’t a brazen attempt to undermine collective bargaining, it’s a smart move by the district to use a one-time windfall to provide bonuses to teachers who richly deserve it.