Hudson Board of Education Decides Not to Accept Union Concessions, Counter Proposal Coming

After more than an hour of debate in closed session on Tuesday night, the Hudson School District Board of Education returned to open session and voted unanimously to offer a counter proposal to a teachers' union collective bargaining proposal.

The Hudson Unit of the West Central Education Association (WCEA) was offering many concessions in the proposal in hope of coming to an agreement on a new contract before Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's collective bargaining law can take effect. The law .

After the meeting, Superintendent Mary Bowen-Eggebraaten said, "The board is trying to balance the valuing the important and significant work of our talented teaching staff with the very significant loss in aid that is occurring at the same time."

She said that the board will work quickly to prepare its counter offer, but it may not come before Walker's collective bargaining law goes into effect.

Scott Ellingson, a teacher and the leader of WCEA's Hudson Unit was disheartened that the board didn't accept the union offer, but he is holding out hope that an acceptable counter offer will come before Friday.

"Unless things change, and they could, it looks like collective bargaining is done at Hudson School District," Ellingson said.

Before going into closed session, the board heard a report from district Financial Services Director Tim Erickson. Erickson said that the district is facing cuts to state aid that will likely result in a total $3.5 million budget shortfall, but the exact numbers are not yet known.

"At this point, it really is a moving target," Erickson said. "Right now that's what we're dealing with. The information that comes out changes and sometimes we even have conflicting information."

Erickson said the official state aid estimates should be available no later than July 1.

During the citizen input portion of the meeting, Ellingson stood at the microphone and laid out the unions' concessions in the proposal.

"Our offer is a historical, unprecedented offer in very historical times," Ellingson said. "We're offering to freeze our salaries for two years. We're offering to double our health insurance contribution, and to bid it out and let the district have final authority on that. We're offering to pay half of our retirement contribution. We're offering to change our early retirement program, to cap it and reduce it. We're offering to extend the teacher work year by a total of five days over two years. We're offering to extend the probationary period for new teachers from three to five years. We're also offering to make it more flexible to deal with teachers who perhaps need a performance plan that are not probationary."

When it was his turn, resident Curt Weese praised the governor's plan and urged the board to not accept the local union proposal.

"I think what's happening here is that you're putting yourself in a box, and it's a cop out for the school board to extend the contract, because what can't you do next week when this becomes law? You can do all of this. What's the difference?" Weese said. "The difference is that when those spending cuts come, you won't have any choices." 

Weese warned the board that extending the contract would put the district in a tough position when it may have to ask the public for additional funds in future referendums.

"If we extend that contract and maintain that slush fund for post-retirement, good luck with a new referendum for buying land or for building a new high school," Weese said. "I'll say right now that I'll work as hard as I did the first time to defeat that referendum."

Other teachers who took the microphone during the citizen input portion of the meeting were Mike Yell, Ann N. Siats, Judy Wyatt-Schlei, Rachel Mueller, Ryan McCarthy and Laurie Harmon. Residents Jerry Ion and Scott Erlenborn also spoke in support of the teachers while Weese was the only speaker who didn't support the union proposal.