President Moskus,

Your email merits a reply point by point:

DG: The economic settlement agreed to covers the first two years of the contract, and each year is within the parameters established by the Board. The parameters of the Board were consistently and in detail elaborated over many months by the College bargaining team who represent the Board. Our bargaining rules, binding agreements entered into by the College and the faculty union, and the law require us to treat the College bargaining team as speaking for the Board. In addition to numerous verbal explanations, written documents substantiate a presentation of the Board parameters. I believe these written documents were shared with you, the only direct employee of the Board, and the vice-presidents on numerous occasions. And the settlement we reached was discussed by you and the vice-presidents and the Board chair before we came to agreement. In an all-day bargaining session, in which the three vice-presidents attended with your proxy, we covered economic matters and the critical framework in which money saved in retirements is used to integrate new faculty into the faculty pay schedule through yearly step increases. This framework was again discussed in a bargaining session in which Vice-President Spilde and Board Chair Ackerman participated. In other words, it was only after we all reached an agreement that the "Board parameter" became known as you present it. Before that, it was clearly and consistently articulated in percentages and monetary amounts, and the settlement we agreed to fit those percentages and amounts. The starting base was $12,342,675 which was increased by 3.3% the first year and 2.7% the second year. The $13,099,523 settlement was within $1,000 of the bargaining parameter originally put on the table.

DG: In addition to comments on this message, I have appended our reply from the faculty union's bargaining newsletter "At the Table", Spring 2000, #6.

DG: Our original agreement is consistent with this statement, where actual faculty cost includes the salary of faculty who are about to retire. Once again, the exact meaning of this statement is given by the elaboration of those with authority to elaborate, in this case the College bargaining representatives with implicit and explicit approval of ALL the top administrators of the college.

DG: While we did not converge to an agreement until this May, negotiations took place from the moment we began. And from the beginning, much to our chagrin, the College bargaining team's mantra was to say how much money there is and to say there will no more and no less throughout the negotiation. And in our testing of these figures they became well defined.

DG: This is not so. As a matter of fact, we tried to get the savings through faculty vacancies due to unfilled faculty positions added to the settlement. It amounted to nearly $600,000. Once again we faced the familiar mantra about the meaning of the Board parameters. (Of course, such funds could only be used for non-recurring costs and not salary and benefits.) No money was added to the 2000-2001 settlement. However, during the negotiations it was realized that the costs of integrating new faculty were offset by savings from the retirements of faculty that they were replacing. This fact was verified and the concept checked with Vice-President Matsen, and as I said earlier thoroughly discussed with all the vice-presidents (who had, at the time, your proxy) and in the presence of the Board chair.

DG: I think I have clarified that it is the money from faculty replacements which is in question. In times of many replacements, failure to use this salary differential to bring new faculty into the final pay scale is a serious attack on faculty compensation. Because use of these funds for step increases for new faculty was explicitly, clearly and unambiguously agreed to in the bargaining process, we had no reason to contest this attack on faculty compensation. And the Board chair was reassured that we were close to settlement before the budget hearings came to a close. One consequence of the College's bargaining stance is that it prevented faculty from contesting this attack on faculty compensation in the budget process, and in a real sense compromised the budget process.

In addition, any reallocation I believe occurred AFTER the College team presented this money to us in bargaining.

DG: The fact is, that in the first year of our agreement, which you agree to, this will NOT be the practice at Lane. In the past, when few faculty positions were being replaced, taking these funds was not a large effect, and this effect may have been hidden by small shifts in the uneven distribution of new faculty progressing into the final pay level. But the situation today is far different, and needs to be approached differently.

DG: It should be clear that "the parameter" refers only to the parameter as understood and articulated by the budget analyst after we reached an agreement.

DG: No validation for this has ever been given. The money amounts to a one-time expense of less then seven tenths of one percent of the general fund budget, and it is routinely less than the limits of precision in which college salary costs or carry-over are predicted. We have pointed out several sources of funding, including excess year-end salary reserves, unbudgeted carry-over, unfilled position money beyond replacement costs, and Board contingency funds of $250,000. In addition, when you start invoking (offensive) arguments about access for students, it lends even greater credibility to the claim that there is money.

DG: And it can be rectified by standing by our original agreement.

DG: And so is the continued justification of it.

DG: We have from the start committed ourselves to a principled settlement of this contract. The settlement we came to was a right and fair settlement which served the interests of all parties. It was the fruit of interest-based bargaining. Our reaction to the administration's abandoning a collectively bargained agreement comes from taking collective bargaining and interest-based bargaining seriously.

DG: Both our teams are now actively negotiating and I believe we can still reach agreement before the end of the term, but it will create an extra burden on faculty to discuss and ratify in a short time. Funding is the principle obstacle. I expect it will take intervention by the Board to resolve this issue. The Board is meeting in executive session today over this issue. We plan to respond as soon as we know the results of this meeting.

DG: See above.

DG: This 5.1 percent is a grossly misleading figure. It includes the normal step advancement for faculty. The net cost of step advancement to the College is effectively zero since the distribution of faculty on the pay schedule remains approximately the same over time with retiring faculty at the top step replaced by faculty at the lower steps. Money saved with faculty retiring at the top step is redistributed paying for the replacement faculty at the lower steps and the movement of the remaining faculty up the steps. The settlement called for the normal step advancement and a 2.7% cost of living increase just matching inflation.

DG: Yet the structure of the agreement in each year is the same, and there is no catastrophe the first year.

DG: The amount of money available to the College has not changed as a result of this error. It is a question of priorities. The Administration has chosen to use money appropriately budgeted for faculty salaries for other purposes. We have arrived at a good agreement through a legitimate process. Why should the faculty have to pay for this mistake when there are millions of dollars in the projected budget carryover and contingency funds available? Our agreement neither jeopardizes serving student needs nor the fiscal solvency of the college. Let's fund the agreement and get on with our work.