Teachers, School Committee negotiations stall
By Ken Powers Community Reporter

Westborough - While Joe Stillitano, the chair of the Westborough Teachers Association (WTA) Contract Negotiating Team wasn't surprised that the Westborough School Committee had opted to request a fact-finding process as the next step in the stalled negotiations between the two sides, he was disappointed that he had to learn about it from reporters calling to ask his opinion of the announced move.

"When the first reporter called, that's when I found out about it," Stillitano said. "I knew it was an option, but we didn't hear anything from the School Committee. We still haven't."

Stillitano made his comments April 10, a day after the School Committee released to members of the media a position paper of sorts regarding the status of contract negotiations, the steps that have been taken and will be taken and the School Committee's stance on the entire matter.

The WTA is under a oneyear extension of a contract that expired June 30, 2007. The extension will expire June 30 of this year. The two sides negotiated for eight months before the WTA declined a School Committee proposal in October 2007 by seven votes.

Since then, the two sides have negotiated three times, the last being April 8, a session that lasted six hours and included a mediator. On April 9, the School Committee voted to ask the Massachusetts Board of Conciliation and Arbitration, now known as the Division of Labor Relations, to conduct a non-binding fact-finding review of the issue.

The process will take at least 60 days, but could take up to 120 days.

"This is the farthest we've ever gone in a contract negotiation in some time, possibly ever," School Committee Chair Rod Jané said. "But it's a chance to bring in some objective eyes."

Because the contract negotiations with the WTA are ongoing, the School Committee approved and sent to the Advisory Finance Committee a budget that contained no provisions for and did not set aside any monies for when the contract dispute is settled.

"That is stunning to me," Stillitano said. "The contract will be settled eventually. It's a cost you know you're going to have to allocate for. How can you not plan for it until it happens? In their personal aff airs, people plan for expenses they know are coming, they don't just try to figure out what to do when those costs arise."

The School Committee and the School Department have taken the stance that when the contract is settled, which will definitely be after the Saturday May 17 Town Meeting, they will look for solutions in the budget and if necessary ask the town to approve a Proposition 2-1/2 override to fund the cost of the contract for the rest of fiscal year 2009 that it applies to, and any retroactive pay agreed to.

Stillitano, once he received a copy of the School Committee's release, said he was disappointed to see that it contained confrontational language, such as "unreasonable proposals."

"We're coming at this from diff erent perspectives, it seems," Stillitano said. "There's a disagreement, obviously, we're trying to work toward a solution and there's a lot of ground to be made up, but we're trying to come up with something both sides can live with. The School Committee seems to be choosing to portray this as we're butting heads. To us, that's not accurate."