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The Berkeley Federation of Teachers and the Berkeley Unified School District reached a tentative contract agreement early Thursday morning, but the details of the deal won’t be released until early next week. 

“I feel happy. I think that all of this work paid off, and I think we have a good agreement for everybody,” said BUSD School Board President Joaquin Rivera, one of the district’s negotiators. 

The agreement came at the end of more than 21 hours of negotiations that began at 9 a.m. Wednesday and wrapped up around 6:15 a.m. Thursday. It’s the second straight week for such a marathon session; the two sides met for about 15 hours during their May 17 session. 

But the community will have to wait until after the Memorial Day weekend to learn the results of the negotiation process. A statement released by the dis- 

trict Thursday afternoon said “specific information will be forthcoming early next week.” 

It’s not clear if that decision was made by the state mediator who has been working with the two sides since March. Mediator Ron McGee declared a press and information blackout earlier this month, and extended his decision after last week’s negotiation session. Calls to McGee on Thursday were not returned. 

Other factors may have contributed to the delayed release of contract details. Certainly all the participants in the negotiations are exhausted after this week’s session. And with today the de facto start of the holiday weekend, many people are hitting the roads and the skies – meaning fewer people might see such information if it were widely distributed today. 

BFT President Barry Fike declined to comment Thursday on the agreement, saying he wanted to make sure it was permissible to issue public comments at this stage. 

Extended process 

The contract negotiation process began in March 1999 as part of a regular “reopener” between the union and the district. Each year, the district and each union has the opportunity to reopen elements of the contract. The BFT was the only union that had not yet reached an agreement with the district on the reopened items. 

At the heart of the dispute has been the disparity between salaries for Berkeley teachers and those of their peers in surrounding school districts. And the irony was that everyone agreed that it was a problem. Every school board meeting, Fike would use the five minutes allocated to the union during the comment period to remind the board of the inequity in salaries. And most meetings, board members would reply that they did value teachers and they did want to find a way to raise salaries. 

As the months of negotiations dragged along, the union’s tenor began to increase, and so did the tension. The “s” word – strike – began to be heard more and more in conversations around the district and around town. It’s a word that hasn’t been heard very often with the BFT. In the last 25 years, the union has held only two strikes: a one-day walkout in 1987, and a nearly six-week strike in 1975. 

Then in March, the union and district declared an impasse in their negotiations, and the mediator was brought into the process. 

Budget constraints 

The key problem in the eyes of the school district was the budget. The BUSD is facing budget shortfalls of around $3 million between the current and upcoming fiscal years. Technically, the district is not in the red, although expenses are outpacing revenues this year, and the trend is expected to continue next year under the district’s original budget. But the BUSD is legally required to maintain a 3 percent reserve fund. So, while the district is projected to end the current fiscal year with a positive fund balance of about $1.7 million, that’s $829,000 short of the mandated reserve level. 

The district estimates that it will gain $3.2 million in additional revenue next year from the state, if the governor’s proposed budget is adopted. But the BUSD is still making cuts in order to maintain its reserve funds. Last week, Superintendent Jack McLaughlin presented a proposal to the school board to cut $1.1 million from the budget. 

Whether more cuts will be proposed as part of the agreement remains to be seen. During a budget workshop earlier this month, a document distributed by the district reported that the “cost of the current salary offer to BFT for 1999-2000” was $665,000. That would have represented about a 3 percent increase over the budgeted teacher salaries for the current fiscal year. The document also states that the district is setting aside $1.9 million in the 2000-2001 fiscal year for salary increases, presumably for all unions, not just BFT. 

The BFT was pushing for a multiyear contract agreement, saying an extended deal would give the district flexibility in solving the salary disparity. According to information provided by the union in March, which came from state reports for the 1998-99 school year, only one Alameda County district with more than 500 students has a lower salary range for new teachers. And every district in the county beats the BUSD for the most experienced teachers on the upper end of the salary range. 

Not yet official 

Thursday’s agreement is still a few steps away from becoming a done deal. The BFT Executive Board was scheduled to meet Thursday afternoon to consider sending the document to its full membership for approval. The school board would only take action on the agreement after it has been approved by the union. 

The two bodies may take their respective votes during the first week of June; the school board has a regularly scheduled meeting on June 7. If the BFT votes after that date, it’s likely that the board would hold a special meeting to vote on the plan. 

No student strike 

Even though the contact has yet to be ratified by either the union or the school board, Thursday’s agreement has brought about the cancellation of the planned “student strike” next Wednesday. That effort had been led by the newly formed group Parents For Increased Salaries for our Teachers, which was closely aligned with the union. 

“I don’t know the details of the agreement, but my understanding is that the district agreed in writing to raise salaries to levels that are competitive with other Alameda County teachers, and that was our goal,” said Jon Marley, a PFIST coordinator. 

Marley said the fate of his organization has yet to be determined. The original idea was to disband after an agreement was reached, but that may change. 

“A number of parents say we’ve done a lot of good work, and that there’s a need for this kind of progressive, activist parent organization separate from the PTA,” he said. “We’ll just have to see if there’s enough interest in continuing in some form.”