(The Center Square) – There is now a formal complaint about the plan from Milwaukee Public Schools to delay raises for its teachers.
The Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association filed a prohibited practice complaint against the district, saying that “MPS has failed to bargain in good faith and has interfered with MTEA members’ exercise of their rights.”
The complaint comes after MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius announced plans to delay scheduled raises for teachers and other MTEA union members.
On Monday, she defended those plans.
“MPS must make hard fiscal decisions to ensure the district is protecting resources for classrooms and presenting a balanced budget proposal for the next school year. We cannot spend money we do not have,” Cassellius said in a statement. “Our team is committed to reaching a fair, lawful, and fiscally responsible agreement that delivers the maximum allowable wage increase to every MTEA-represented employee while honoring the district’s obligation to adopt a balanced budget.”
The superintendent said MPS has offered a full 2.63% wage increase to the union, but she wants to delay when those raises begin.
Cassellius has said delaying the raise beyond July 1 could save as much as $20 million.
The union continues to say those numbers are off.
“The difference between the cost of providing MTEA bargaining units the maximum 2.63% COLA on July 1 and MPS’s highest-cost proposal is only $2.2 million according to MPS Administration’s own calculations,” the union stated in a Facebook post Monday. “MPS Administration is making that incredibly difficult by going out of their way to mislead our community about the real financial impact of providing a 2.63% cost of living adjustment to frontline MTEA workers.”
Cassellius said MPS is looking at a $46 million budget deficit. In addition to the plan to delay the union’s cost of living raises, she wants to eliminate nearly 200 positions. Cassellius has promised to use federal money to hire back nearly 100 teachers and other classroom staffers.
