By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

MILWAUKEE – Up to 400 employees of Milwaukee Public Schools could be out of a job next year, thanks to a teachers union membership vote to reject contract concessions that could have saved many of the positions.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the city school district plans to cut spending next year by about $20 million, in part by closing schools and eliminating 234 teaching positions.

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“The budget proposal comes on the heels of two straight years of triple-digit employee layoffs in MPS, even as the district has merged and closed schools to grapple with decreasing enrollment and state funding cuts,” the newspaper reports.

MTEA President Bob Peterson and district officials devised a plan in March to save as many as 100 teaching positions in the coming year by negotiating labor concessions that would have translated into about a week’s worth of pay for each MTEA member. Teachers union members voted down the proposal.

Instead, the district’s teachers will get a raise, and students will get shortchanged.

“Enrollment in MPS is projected to drop 1.3 percent next year to 86,987 students, a projection that includes students who enroll in suburban districts under the Chapter 220 school integration program and students who leave under the state’s open enrollment process,” the Journal Sentinel reports.

“Meanwhile, the average teacher salary is expected to increase from $59,500 this year to $62,800 next year, primarily because of a 3 percent contractual raise built into the collective bargaining agreement between the district and the teachers union,” according to the newspaper.

If that isn’t enough, EAGnews.org has also documented numerous expensive union contract provisions that we believe should be cut or eliminated before the Milwaukee district sends pink slips to teachers. Unfortunately, without the cooperation of union members, those types of costs probably can’t be eliminated until the union’s collective bargaining agreement expires in 2013.