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12 18 18 - Fact-Finder Report On LAUSD-UTLA Dispute - Via KPCC-LAist
12 18 18 - Fact-Finder Report On LAUSD-UTLA Dispute - Via KPCC-LAist
3548.2
PERB Case # LA-IM- 4001-E
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In the Matter of an Impasse Between
And
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For the District: Barrett K. Green, Attorney
Littler Mendelson
Factfinding Panel
between the Los Angeles Unified School District (District) and the United
Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) in the All Certified Less Other Group unit. The
panel held hearings on December 3rd and 4th, 2018 in Los Angeles. At these
hearings the parties had full opportunity to present testimony and evidence to the
panel, and to discuss and argue the issues in dispute. At the conclusion of the
hearing the Neutral Panel member attempted to mediate the issues in dispute,
which was not successful and therefore the dispute was submitted to the Panel
for their recommendations. The parties’ agreed to waive the applicable statutory
sets forth the procedures and criteria to be used in the factfinding process.
3. The interests and welfare of the public and the financial ability of the
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4. Comparison of the wages, hours, and conditions of employment of the
5. The consumer price index for goods and services, commonly known as
benefits received.
7. Any other facts, not confined to those specified in paragraphs (1) to (6)
The Los Angeles Unified School District is the largest public school
system in California, and the 2nd largest school district in the United States. The
District serves almost 700,000 students and employs almost 60,000 workers, and
is the second largest employer in Los Angeles County. The District operates over
1000 schools at the elementary, middle and high school levels. It also operates
several hundred early and adult education centers, and special schools. The
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These schools are spread out over 720 square miles that make up the
teachers and health and human service workers. The District’s annual budget is
the 2022 fiscal year. The District in their presentation at the factfinding hearing
anticipated deficit spending in each yearly cycle of over $300 million dollars each
year. The Union disputes these figures and cites an analysis from the Los
amounts of $64.7 million in 2018-19, $82.3 million in 2019-20, and $129.7 million
approximately $1.8 billion, which has been increasing in the past 5 years from
$500 million in 2013-2014 to the current reserve levels. It is anticipated that the
reserves in the coming fiscal years will be decreasing due to the anticipated
deficit spending. The District’s average daily attendance (ADA), which forms a
significant percentage of the incoming revenue for the District has been declining
in each of the last 4 years, a drop of 8.6% during that time period.
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The neutral panel member did not have the ability to reconcile these two approaches to
deficit spending accounting at this time.
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With respect to comparability, the LAUSD ranks in the middle to low-
middle range of other large urban districts and on the low end of surrounding
comparability with other school districts is based on ADA, and this analysis
places them on the mid to higher comparable scale for wages and benefits, when
applying this structure. LAUSD is one of the few school districts in the State that
its students. English learners make up over 27% of total enrollment and the
Unduplicated Pupil Percentage was 85.5% in 2017-18. There is a high need for
The relevant data indicates that CPI will average between 3.5 and 4% for
to the 2014-2017 CBA, which expired on June 30, 2017. The parties held 22
bargaining sessions prior to July of 2018 when the Union declared impasse. One
more bargaining session was held in July of 2018 when impasse was declared
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This factfinding report is limited in its financial analysis due to the time constraints
imposed of four (4) total days for hearing and report generation. The parties submitted
over 2000 pages of data, much of which is detailed fiscal analysis that is impossible to
digest in a short time frame. The neutral factfinder is therefore only giving a summary of
the fiscal and comparative factors to be considered in the factfinding.
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again, and approved by PERB on August 3, 2018. The Union issued a Last,
Best, and Final contract offer on July 24, 2018. The parties held 3 mediation
sessions subsequent to that offer and prior to this factfinding. During bargaining,
The parties have twenty-one remaining Articles that are presented to this
factfinding panel, most of which contain multiple issues that remain in dispute
and unresolved. The following items were presented to the Panel: Article IV-
UTLA Rights; Article IX- Hours, Duties and Work Year; Article IX-A-Assignments;
Accountability
RECOMMENDATIONS
The Neutral Panel member chosen by the parties believes that the statute
under which this factfinding takes place is best viewed as an extension of the
collective bargaining process. The best outcome of this factfinding process would
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be a negotiated agreement between the parties. The intent of these
and the statute lays out a set of criteria that are to guide the panel in making their
findings.
agreement for over a year, and while they conducted over 20 bargaining
sessions and three mediations, they have only been able to come to an
Articles, which have multiple issues within them. From the information provided
to the Neutral Panel member regarding this bargaining history, there seems to
have been almost no progress made on any issue, which normally would be
reflected in multiple counter offers being exchanged by each side that reduces
the issues between the parties. This makes it particularly difficult for the Neutral
dispute which covers almost 30,000 bargaining unit members serving over
600,000 students, and a District budget of over 7 billion dollars, is only allotted a
total of 4 days, including hearing and writing for the entire factfinding process.
settlement framework, which the parties can use to advance the bargaining
proposals are more general than I would like, I still believe they can provide the
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framework for a settlement, hopefully without the need for a strike or imposition
of contractual provisions. While there are 21 Articles open for resolution and all of
them are important, it is clear to this Panel Member that two of the issues are key
to contract resolution; Salaries and Class Size. I will be offering the most specific
recommendations on these two items in the belief that they are key to the
Article XIV-Salaries: The parties are not very far apart on this issue. I am
recommending the adoption of the District’s offer of 3% effective July 1, 2017 and
development. I agree with the Union’s argument that the bargaining unit
combination of a higher cost of living in the LA metro area, and the difficulty in
teaching a population of students with so many needs and challenges. While all
teachers face obstacles in their successful teaching, the Los Angeles Unified
School District has more than most, and recruiting and retaining them with high
salaries and benefits should be a priority. However, the District does have
financial limitations that must be balanced with these needs, and in this round of
bargaining the Union has additionally made it a priority to reduce class sizes,
the District’s proposal for 12 additional hours from the staff in professional
development has benefits to the District, they are not compelling enough to
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warrant this requirement, and this part of their salary proposal should be
comparative position of the bargaining unit in wages and benefits, the current
settlements involving other school districts and internal bargaining units, and the
cost of living increases that are faced by the unit members in Los Angeles. As
part of the District’s wage offer I also recommend their proposal for new teachers
to fall under the Rule of 87 for retiree health benefits. Retiree health is a great
benefit and definitely helps in the recruitment and retention of LAUSD teachers. It
is also very expensive and represents an ongoing balance sheet problem for the
District. Making some adjustment for future teachers is warranted and may help
in the future to free up more money for salaries as opposed to diverting so much
Article XVIII-Class Size: In concert with the proposal on salaries, class size
represents a key demand of the Union and is essential to the resolution of this
dispute. I agree with the Union argument that lower class sizes are one of the
best predictors of successful teaching and student success. I also agree that
lowering class size may be one of the keys to increasing ADA, and maintaining
and recruiting students to LAUSD, which remains a joint goal of the parties.
Unfortunately, the parties are not in agreement as to how to calculate class size.
The District in this factfinding asserts that the LAUSD class size averages are
some of the lowest in the State, and the Union disputes these figures. Given the
limited time for the factfinding I cannot make any recommendations or findings
regarding this disagreement, but I do believe the parties will need to develop a
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shared understanding as to how to calculate this figure. The parties should
dedicate a few key individuals to immediately work together with shared data to
There is no doubt that the Union’s demands at this point are expensive
and the parties are not in agreement on how to cost this item, which will be key to
percentage of money to be used for the employment of teachers and other staff
to reduce class size and provide additional student access to the services of
librarians, nurses and other professional staff. The Neutral Panel Chair also
recommends the adoption of the Union proposal to Eliminate Section 1.5 from
the CBA. This will allow teachers who believe they are facing excessive class
size, to have redress through the grievance procedure, which was available but
significantly limited by Section 1.5. Along with the elimination of 1.5, the parties
will need to agree upon new MOU class size maximums/averages to replace the
current Appendix H, with a future goal of reaching the current CBA numbers. I
believe it will be impossible for financial reasons, to return and implement the
CBA numbers in one year, but it should be the goal to do so within a couple of
numbers for the next year that are a reduction from Appendix H, and that can be
and staff to reduce class size and increase access to other professional services.
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The parties will need to come to an agreement on how to cost this additional
The parties will also have to agree jointly, which classifications should be hired
The parties have not made any proposals beyond the 2018-2019 year,
successor agreement by the time this contract is agreed upon. I recommend the
salaries and class size, and maybe one or two other items. The parties need to
have time to evaluate and assess the impact of these changes to the contract,
which are significant. In addition, it may allow the parties to add financial triggers
into the CBA, so as to allow the parties to reach agreements that would be
conditioned upon certain financial conditions being present. I believe that these
economic settlement proposals advanced by the Neutral Panel Chair would not
place the District into insolvency and are affordable at this time given the current
reserve levels and anticipated deficit spending in the coming years. I also
recommend that in the future the District and the Union should develop a joint
fundraising plan, which could include agreements to promote a parcel tax and
other possible initiatives that would focus on raising teacher salaries to make
them more competitive to the surrounding school districts and communities that
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significant departure from prior practices and represent an attempt towards a
public education has many positive attributes, but it relies upon a level of trust
between labor and management which is not present at this time. I believe one
way to begin to build this trust is to translate some of the Union proposals into
pilot projects, which can provide the opportunity for the parties to work together
and develop common support for these contract proposals that can then be
made part of the fabric of the contract and governance when that trust has been
developed. I also believe that some of the proposals advanced by both parties
that when too many proposals remain towards the conclusion of bargaining, it is
best to withdraw some of them, with the understanding that these matters can be
raised again in the next round of bargaining. The Panel Chair makes the
certain elements of these proposals may have been already tentatively agreed
upon by the parties and should be converted into contract language and adopted.
Article IV-UTLA Rights: Agree to expand the number of chapter chairs for
discipline. Drop the remaining changes and maintain status quo on all other
proposals.
Article IX-Hours, Duties and Work Year: Accept LAUSD proposal of one hour
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Article IX-A-Assignments and IX-B- Professional Development: Agree to
posting of seniority lists. Agree to set up a Pilot project involving a limited but
appropriate number of schools, and/or facilities at each level, to pilot the changes
proposed by the Union, with sunset provisions to build support for these
10.
Article X-A-Discipline: The District should drop this proposal as they have not
made a convincing argument for these changes, and this is not common in most
Article XI-Transfers: Place previously agreed upon items in the CBA. Agree to
use seniority in displacements if skills and abilities are comparable. Drop the
Article XI-B-Master Plan: Drop both parties proposals for this bargaining term.
hour window for lateness, comp for late cancellation). Agree to information
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Article XXI-Adult Education: Add the agreed upon items to CBA (“M basis”,
provide classification codes to Union) Drop the remaining proposals as too costly
given other monies agreed to for hiring additional staff under the class size
proposal.
Article XXII-Early Education: Agree to create Task Force. Drop the remaining
proposals.
Article XXVII-Shared Decision Making: Drop this proposal. While the Union
to convince the District at this time to develop a shared decision making model
New Article- Special Education- Agree to this new article, and finalize an
caseloads requested by the Union are quite expensive and can probably be only
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slightly reduced by the additional class size reduction money proposed. Other
agreed upon later date by the end of the calendar year. Agree to the other
The Neutral Member of this Panel agrees that these recommendations are in
accord with California Government Code Section 3548.2, and endorses these
recommendations.
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Findings and Recommendations Pursuant to California Government Code
section 3548.2
PERB Case # LA-IM-4001-E
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In the Matter of an Impasse Between
Los Angeles Unified School District
United Teachers Los Angeles
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Concurrence Of Panelist Adam Fiss:
I concur wholeheartedly with the vast majority of the Neutral Factfinder’s Findings
and Recommendations. I write separately only to clarify a few facts and highlight
a few areas of elaboration or disagreement.
With respect to class size, while I appreciate that the Neutral had limited time to
verify the numbers on class size averages, the official California Department of
Education figures are accurate and reflect that of the 10 largest school districts in
the State, LAUSD is second only to San Francisco Unified in lowest class size
averages, as reflected in the following chart:
With respect to the deletion of Section 1.5 from the class size article, I want to
emphasize that it will be important to negotiate safeguards that allow for
deviation from the agreed-upon new re-benchmarked figures to ensure sufficient
flexibility during times of economic duress.
I also want to clarify that whether it will be possible to return to averages and
maximums from figures that have not been in place for more than 10 years will
depend on a tradeoff between class size and compensation. For now, the
agreed-upon figures contained in the 2017 LAUSD/UTLA MOU remain the most
realistic figures.
With respect to the District’s reserves, I want to clarify that some of the reserve
sums mentioned are not unrestricted because they include funds that are
allocated to the local school cites to expend consistent with the Local Control
Accountability (LCAP).
With respect to the few items that call for limiting District discretion in matters of
assignment, testing, or selection, I believe any such limitation should be carefully
circumscribed.
With respect to the remaining items, I concur that some pilot programs may be
appropriate, but the nature and scope of those pilot programs would need to be
carefully targeted. In addition, with respect to the suggested pilot program in
Article XXV, Academic Freedom and Responsibilities, allowing teacher
determination of testing beyond mandatory testing, I disagree with this
recommendation because this matter is not a mandatory subject of bargaining
(i.e., only appropriate for consultation). The pilot would also lead to inconsistent
(non-uniform) student testing across the District and from classroom to
classroom.
Adam J. Fiss
Adam J. Fiss, Panelist
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Concurrence Of Panelist Adam J. Fiss – LA-IM-4001-E
David A. Weinberg
Arbitration, Mediation and Conflict Resolution Services
35 Miller Ave #117 Mill Valley, CA 94941
415-378-5701 [email protected]
Southern California office:
1223 Wilshire Blvd. #622 Santa Monica, CA 90403
December 17, 2018
Dear Parties:
Attached you will find the factfinding panel findings of fact and recommendations for terms of
settlement as required under Government Code 3548.3. I hope these findings and
recommendations can help the parties achieve a mutually agreeable resolution to this
contractual dispute. If I can be of any further help to you please do not hesitate to contact me at
any time. It was a pleasure to work with both of you.
Sincerely,
David A. Weinberg