School Board Schedules Special Meeting Wednesday on Union Vote

The Wauwatosa School Board will meet Wednesday evening in a special session to again consider approval of an interim agreement with the union representing its custodians after Monday night.

It is the only item on the agenda for the 6 p.m. meeting in the board room of the Fisher Building, 12121 W. North Ave.

The board voted 6-0 Monday, with member Tom Jarosz absent, to delay a vote on an agreement with the union until no later than June 13, the board's next scheduled meeting.

But Superintendent Phil Ertl said Monday a special meeting could be scheduled as soon as this week, and it will come in less than 48 hours after the postponement.

There is reason for the rush. The district faces a June 1 deadline for informing staff of layoffs and changes in assignments. The administration also must present its proposed 2011-2012 budget to the School Board on June 13. Without an agreement in place with Local 1561 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), planning for both of those deadlines would be compromised.

On Monday, the board also was presented with the for the coming year. It calls for minimal reductions in staff and a very slight increase in class sizes. But without the AFSCME deal, those numbers soon would have to be adjusted.

Likewise, the proposed budget, which being prepared now by district staff and is driven by staffing numbers, would have to be revised.

Local 1561 has a contract in place until June 2013 but agreed to a memorandum of understanding that freezes salaries at current levels and requires members to  pay more for pension and health benefits.

Those concessions, along with identical ones from the two unions representing teachers and teachers aides, form the bulk of savings needed to fill what was a $6.5 million budget shortfall.

Without those savings, more than 100 teachers would have been laid off and class sizes would risen by 10 students on average.

After approving one-year agreements with the teachers union, Wauwatosa Education Association, and the aides, Wauwatosa Education Support Professionals, the board on Monday voted to postpone a vote on the AFSCME agreement because of ambiguous language. The letter was found to lack any specific term of the life of the agreement.

Ertl and Dan Chanen, district human resources director, said Monday that the letter of understanding could be redrafted quickly to satisfy board members.