Update on Pasadena Unified Negotiations With Its Teachers Union

Pasadena Unified School District building (Photo – Staff)

The two negotiating teams have been meeting regularly, and PUSD issued an update this morning, November 18, on the results of the fifth bargaining session of the 2024-2025 school year.

By Rena Kurlander

Union Proposals

During the bargaining session, United Teachers of Pasadena continued presenting proposals relating to Special Education that they had begun to present at the previous session on October 30th. This proposed new contract article would establish caps on class sizes and caseloads for special education staff, give them a new non-instructional period during the school day in which to do compliance duties, provide them additional pay to participate in Individual Education Plan (IEP) meetings or conduct assessments if those fall during their student-free preparation periods or after the school day, and increase the number of aides in special education classrooms.  These items would increase the numbers of staff employed by the district and thus would increase costs.

The teachers’ union also presented proposals to modify the existing contract article on work hours.  Their proposal would establish a set length of the work day, limit after school student supervision duties, increase the pay for being a substitute teacher during one’s student-free preparation period, provide extra pay for general education teachers attending IEP meetings outside of the school day and reduce the number of student instructional minutes.

The union also presented its second proposal to modify the existing contract article on the rights of the union, requesting that the president of the union be released from all teaching duties and paid as a substitute while not teaching, and the union be granted more authority to appoint department chairs and members of school site committees and teacher teams.

District Proposals

The District presented its initial proposal on the existing contract article on transfers and reassignments, seeking to provide additional flexibility to site leaders when providing classroom assignments to staff based on credentialing and student need.

The District also presented a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to formalize agreements related to overbanked minutes and which days on the calendar would therefore be shortened for the 2024-2025 school year.

The District also reported that in future sessions, it plans to present proposals and counter-proposals on four articles: Article XXV (Teachers on Special Assignment), Article X (Class Size), Article XVI (Child Development Programs), and Article XV (Health and Welfare Benefits).

Fiscal Considerations

The District reported that, as previously mentioned, its three-year Multi Year Projection (MYP) budget forecasts a $47 million negative ending balance by 2026-2027. During last year’s negotiations, the district still had a large reserve because of special Covid relief funding provided from the federal government, so last year it agreed to give all staff a 10% raise, bringing the total raises for most staff to 28% over the last three years. These raises have increased the district’s ongoing costs by about $50 million. This current (2023-2024) budget year the district will thus spend $50 million more than it will receive in revenue, and by the year 2026-27, that ongoing additional cost will result in that amount being a negative ending balance.

Since school districts are required to maintain a 3% positive balance, the district is currently trying to implement a fiscal stabilization plan required by LA County during last year’s raises and layoffs. In an attempt to find reductions in costs, the District has been engaging in collaborative discussion with the Superintendent’s Budget Advisory Committee (SBAC) to analyze PUSD’s fiscal situation and explore ongoing financial reductions. Therefore, the district stated that changes to contract language proposed by UTP that incur ongoing costs to the District must be carefully measured, as a number of proposed changes at the table will bring the need for increased staffing and hence increased costs, thereby worsening PUSD’s fiscal outlook.

The next bargaining session is scheduled for December 2, 2024.