Retirement Incentive Update

Members:

On Friday, January 14, the district responded to our retirement incentive proposal. The three biggest changes that they wanted were 1) two years *2022 and 2023) instead of three years (2022, 2023 and 2024); 2) 40 teachers, 20 each year instead of 30; and 3) $9,000 instead of $22,500.

The HEA bargaining team met over email and text to discuss this, and made a counter proposal. The counter and the reasoning:

• We compromised to two years, 2022 and 2023. This was a firm place for the district, mostly due to budgeting issues in year three.

• We again asked for 30 teachers over the two years, in any combination of numbers. We believe that 40 veteran teachers with a lot of years in our district would "drain" our district of too much experience, mentoring, and educational and institutional knowledge all at once.

• We asked for $18,000 in incentive dollars. We felt that this would be attractive enough and incentivize some people to retire who were "sitting on the fence."

All of the rest of the issues stayed the same from our original proposal--extending the date until February 25, choosing Option 1 or 2 from the CBA benefit if retiring in 2023, prioritizing salary, seniority, time on step, and date/time of notification.

Next steps: wait for a response from the district.

Please do not hesitate to contact me (jshawn@helenaschools.org, jshawnhea@gmail.com, or 475-2106) with any questions. Once we hear from the district, you will hear from HEA.

Jane