(Online version viewable here) 

Dear PPS Community,

We continue progressing toward a settlement with the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT), and are pleased to report new tentative agreements since yesterday.

Even with this progress, though, we have encountered another last-minute obstacle. Days ago, the union and district signed a tentative agreement to extend educators’ work-year by a day beginning in the 24-25 school year. This came after weeks of negotiations during which we raised our cost-of-living offer to include adding this day (you can us demonstrating the cost of this here, pg. 2 - “0.5% Increase to Base Salary”).

Last night, however, the union asked for an additional 0.5% increase to reflect the extra day -- even though this increase has already been factored into the district’s offer. This last-minute request would increase the cost of our package by roughly $4 million which, to put things in perspective, is approximately 45 staff members.

This would be more spending in a contract that will already require us to make over $126 million in cuts. At this scale cuts will range widely, from administration and contract spending to support services for students to staff. What we have agreed to is already on the edge of what is fiscally sustainable; we simply cannot accept $4 million more spending.

This is now stopping us from finalizing the terms of our full compensation package, and is therefore the only issue standing between us a tentative agreement.

To reiterate what we have said before, we want students back in school as soon as possible. We will update you again tomorrow (Sunday) about our progress toward that goal.

Sincerely,

Guadalupe Guerrero
Superintendent

Portland Public Schools Board of Education
Gary Hollands, Chair
Herman Greene, Vice Chair
Michelle DePass
Julia Brim-Edwards
Andrew Scott
Eddie Wang
Patte Sullivan