Conflict broke out during the latest Osceola School Board meeting, as board members expressed confusion and frustration with the district’s proposed $1,000 teacher bonus.
Several members of the Osceola County Education Association were present at the meeting to discuss their dissatisfaction with that one-time offer in response to their request for an 8.7% cost of living adjustment.
After a few spoke out during the public comments section of the meeting, board member Julius Melendez questioned who authorized the offer of the non-recurring bonus, as he said he did not recall it coming up during the executive session to discuss the COLA request.
Board member Jon Arguello agreed with Melendez. “Whatever offer was made was not what we discussed in the executive session,” he said. “That’s the problem.”
Board chair Terry Castillo asked John Boyd, Director of Government and Labor Relations and Chief Negotiator for the district, to discuss his meeting with the OCEA and the offer that was brought to the table. Boyd said he was asked by Superintendent Debra Pace to present the offer. He also said that his philosophy in salary negotiations is that salaries are “love letters” to their employees.
“They are a commitment to be sustained from one year to the next,” he said. “If you bargain something that is not sustainable, that is a lie. It is a breach of trust. It is a failure to continue to support our employees.”
Boyd also said that he felt that the collective bargaining process was not progressing the way it was intended to but didn’t offer any specifics. He did say he had reached out to an independent third party to schedule additional training for his team and representatives from the OCEA.
Members of the board, however, took issue with the fact that offers were made that they said were not agreed upon during the executive session.
“I feel so offended that I take the time in an executive session, we have a supposed agreement and then what goes out is something totally different than what the board said,” Melendez said.
Castillo disagreed and said that she felt the offer represented what was discussed and that they would be taking minutes and/or recording executive sessions to eliminate any possible confusion over what was discussed and decided during these private sessions in the future.
The OCEA’s rejection of the one-time bonus will send them back to the bargaining table with the district in the coming weeks.
