Budget Bill Thrusts School District Between Rock, Hard Place, Another Hard Place

Three dates on the calendar have much to say about the immediate future of the Menomonee Falls School District, and right now the district is stuck among those dates in a "very, very awkward position," according to its attorney.

Menomonee Falls School District Attorney Jim Korom addressed parents and teachers at a PTA-sponsored budget forum Tuesday and laid out the situation surrounding those dates:

On June 30, the two-year contract between the school district and the teachers union expires.

By May 15, per that contract, the district must issue official layoff notices for the next school year. The original plan was to eliminate 15 positions in a cost-saving measure. That was also the deadline to complete a new two-year contract, under new state provisions that limit collective bargaining.

But the third date — March 18 — has complicated everything.

On that day, a Dane County judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Secretary of State from publishing 2011 Act 10 — the Budget Repair Bill — until further order of her court. When that matter is resolved, one of the questions to be answered is when the bill actually takes effect. Is it in mid-March, once the bill was passed and signed? Or is it when the courts settle the matter?

If it's the earlier date, any contract collectively bargained for could be deemed void. Yet the chance that it's the later date — whenever that comes — is increasing pressure on both sides to come to a deal.

“Right now we are in a very, very awkward position legally,” Korom said. “We are in a very ambiguous time right now whether the budget bill is in effect or not in effect.”

If cost-saving measures cannot be collectively bargained by May 15, Business Director Jeffrey Gross said the district could lay off more than 15 employees to help slice into an expected . If it turns out the budget repair bill is indeed already published and the district can implement the changes needed to balance the budget, it could recall laid off employees in summer. But Korom said it could be too late at that point.

“You can hire them back assuming they haven’t gotten a job somewhere else,” Korom said. “That’s the problem, you lose your best and brightest to other school districts. That’s why there’s some degree of urgency on behalf of both the union and the district.”

Regardless of whether the collective bargaining bill is legally in effect or not, the fact that it could be is enough to drive union groups to make concessions in pension payments and changes to payment structure and health benefits to prevent layoffs, he said.

“These kinds of concessions would never have occurred six months ago, they just absolutely were not in anybody’s realm of imagination,” Korom said. “The fact that Act 10 even exists has created incentive to make concessions.

“Under the old system the question, ‘What’s a fair burden for our taxpayers to bear?’ was never considered on the bargaining table,” Korom said. “There are some shared interests because of the uncertainty in the law, and there’s an incentive for both parties to work something out.”