CHARLESTON — Divides over education continue at the Capitol, raising more and more talk of a special session.
The presidents of the two West Virginia teachers unions continue to say a pay raise was never the central reason for a two-day strike earlier this year, and the Senate Finance chairman says a pay raise for educators is far less likely to happen because of the strike.
But Finance Chairman Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, says he could support a proposal under discussion at the Capitol that could tie a 2 percent pay raise to other changes to the education system. It’s not yet clear what changes could be under discussion.
“Absolutely, there’s been discussion of that. We’ve been committed to giving the pay raises for this, but we’ve also been committed to education reform,” he said in an interview
“We need to fix education in West Virginia. We need to make it so student performance improves. We need to make it so teachers can do what they do best in the classroom. I would welcome a special session to address that.”
The teacher pay raise continues to be central to political discussions at the Capitol.
The pay raises for teachers and public service personnel amount to $67 million. That’s a significant piece in the state budget, which the Legislature is constitutionally-required to complete.
The Senate’s budget does not include the teacher pay raise. The House of Delegates budget does.
The Senate amended its full budget bill into the House’s on Tuesday. Senators then voted 20-14 to pass the budget bill on Wednesday. Assuming the House doesn’t concur with the changes, the two houses appear headed to conference committee to try to work out differences.
The regular, 60-day legislative session ends at midnight Saturday.
Over the past couple of days, Gov. Jim Justice has met with Republican and Democratic caucuses in the Senate and House of Delegates. Earlier this week, he described the possibility of compromise and mentioned the possibility of a special session.
“What I want to do is to try to bring everybody together, if it be a special session or whatever it be and try to make some real progress,” Justice said earlier this week.
Justice also suggested he would be open to other changes to West Virginia’s education system, although he did not specify.
“I want to really bring everyone to the table,” Justice said. “There’s certain things there’s no question the Senate Republicans would like to have. They call it reform. I’d like to call it the betterment of our education system, and our schools for our kids and our teachers and everybody.”
In October, Justice proposed a pay raise of roughly 5 percent back in October, and has maintained that position.
The Republican-led majority in the Senate tied the pay raise to educational changes such as charter schools, education savings accounts, changes to local control of property taxes that fund school systems, more flexibility to pay higher salaries for in-demand educators and changes to the role seniority plays when layoffs have to occur.
Concern over the bill’s passage by the Senate led to a two-day strike by teachers unions.
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The House of Delegates, which also has a Republican majority, voted down the omnibus education bill, with members citing reluctance to embrace charter schools and education savings accounts, which set aside tax dollars for students leaving public school for private education.
The House then passed a standalone pay raise bill for teachers, school service personnel and State Police. Raises for other state employees would be reflected in the general revenue budget.
Blair said he supports the budget priorities and bills that reflect pay raises for the other state employees.
“The bottom line is that — and this is Craig Blair speaking — the vehicle is out there that anybody out there who didn’t go on strike is getting a pay raise,” he said.
“At this point, I can tell you I know that the state employees are going to get their 5 percent pay raise in the budget because they continued to work, perform their jobs, for the people of the state of West Virginia without walking off the job for their contractual duties.”
The pay raise bill for teachers and service personnel was assigned to the Senate Education and Finance committees.
Blair said he can’t say if it will be taken up.
“I can’t answer that question at this point in time,” he said. “It’s not on the agenda. I don’t know whether it will be on the agenda or not.”
The leaders of West Virginia’s two teachers unions continued to say Wednesday that the strike was never about the pay raise.
“It was more about saving public education than it was about the pay raise,” West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee said today on MetroNews’ “Talkline.”
“Educators said they didn’t want to harm public education. That’s what the strike for two days was about. It wasn’t about the pay raise. We didn’t ask for the pay raise. The governor made the announcement in October.”
Lee characterized the pay raise as a promise made by the governor, who was surrounded by senators such as Blair, Senate President Mitch Carmichael, now-Majority Leader Tom Takubo and now-Education Chairwoman Patricia Rucker.
“I go back to when the governor made his announcement in October. He was surrounded by legislative leaders. All of them standing there saying we’re committed to giving educators of West Virginia another 5 percent pay increase,” Lee said.
“Not once did they say ‘We’re going to do that with strings attached.’”
Lee said union members continue to be opposed to the charter schools and education savings accounts but could be open to some of the other aspects of the omnibus education bill.
He was not impressed by floating a 2 percent raise as part of a broader deal.
“That’s a nonstarter. That’s an insult,” Lee said.
Fred Albert, the president of the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia, also said the pay raise was not the main factor in the strike. Albert spoke during a press conference to describe educational priorities reflected in a survey completed by the union.
“We understand the pay raise has stalled, but remember that was the governor’s proposal. Teachers and service personnel did not ask for a pay raise this year,” Albert said in response to a MetroNews question.
“We asked for our schools to be funded, for help in wraparound services for our students. We are putting our students first. That’s why we walked out when we walked out.”
The bill that was voted down in the House of Delegates had reflected about $24 million for counseling and wraparound services in schools.
“That’s fine, but why are we tying that all in with the pay raise?” Albert said. “The governor has said time and time again, he proposed a pay raise, that should be a standalone bill, a clean bill. And we support that.”
Albert said teachers union members would like to take part in shaping a special session agenda, if there is one.
“Educators, parents, service personnel would love to sit down at the table and share our concerns, and share what we know would help our students in West Virginia. So we look forward to that dialogue. We would love to be part of that conversation.”
