Hays USD 489 school board reaches impasse with teachers on contract

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The Hays USD 489 school district announced Tuesday it has reached an impasse with teachers over contract negotiations.

Superintendent John Thissen said the district will make a request through the Kansas Department of Labor to bring in a mediator to try to resolve the contract dispute.

Kim Schneweis, co-chair of the teachers negotiating committee, said the sticking point is over pay.

All other employees in the district received a 4.6 percent pay increase, but when the teachers looked at the pay schedule that was offered to them, the raise did not equal 4.6 percent, she said. Schneweis said the average increase per teacher was about 3.2 percent. The difference in the district proposal and the teachers’ request is $465 per person.

“We are not asking for more than anybody else,” she said. “We don’t feel that we are more deserving. We see how hard everybody else works, but we do feel we are as deserving.”

When the Kansas Legislature passed the increase in school funding, they noted it should go to classrooms, Schneweis said.

“That is us,” she said. “Teachers are in the classroom.”

She said it was her understanding the 4.6 percent increase for the teachers was budgeted, so the negotiating committee did not understand why the board would not approve the 4.6 percent. She said the board did not respond when asked where the difference in the budgeted raise and the offer was going to go.

Schneweis said the teachers worked with the district on several issues in the contract already this year, including a payroll procedural issue, removing a clause in the contract that prohibited Wednesday night meetings, as well as revising the coaches and sponsors pay schedule.

She noted the teachers worked with the district through several years in which they received no pay increase. They went through a major health insurance change last year and have weathered changes to retiree and severance benefits.

“We had board members saying these saving will come back to you in salary,” she said. “We never imagined they would give us a lesser increase than everyone else, because that has not been the practice in our district. It has always been to give a comparable raise to all employee groups.”

Schneweis said the board decided they no longer wanted to negotiate. She said the teachers had hoped to resolve the contract issue locally.

Thissen said he did not think he could elaborate on the negotiations at this time.

Teachers continue to work under their 2017/18 contract until the new contract is approved.

The district also reached an impasse with teachers in 2016.