As a teachers strike looms over St. Paul Public Schools for the fourth time since 2018, district leadership on Tuesday said it is open to taking contract talks into arbitration to avoid a March 11 walk-out.

While the St. Paul Federation of Educators and the school district say there has been some progress in closed-door mediation sessions over the last month, they’re still working through major disagreements on pay and insurance.

District human resources chief Pat Pratt-Cook told reporters at a Tuesday news conference that the district hopes to settle the contract over the weekend, though there are no more mediation sessions scheduled after Friday.

“We are committed to being there the entire weekend,” she said. “A potential educators strike impacts not only our students but has significant disruption for the greater community.”

Arbitration

If the district and union can’t reach an agreement by March 11, another option to avoid a strike would be to enter arbitration, Pratt-Cook said. Each side would present their case to a third party who would make a final decision on the new contract.

The district said it was sending a letter to the union Tuesday to request the option, though the union would have to accept the offer. For now, there’s little indication they are interested.

SPFE President Leah VanDassor said they first heard of the district’s arbitration proposal through the news conference on the negotiations.

“Our union is disappointed to learn of this development in a news conference, instead of talking to us first,” she said. “We remain committed to reaching a settlement that benefits both our students and our educators, and believe this can still be accomplished via mediation.”

Gap in spending targets

St. Paul Public Schools faces a $107.7 million budget shortfall and district officials have said they can only expand spending by about $12.4 million. Union requests for spending total around $112 million, according to the school district.

Declining enrollment, the expiration of federal pandemic aid and growing operational expenses are to blame for the shortfall, and a $56 million boost in ongoing funding from the state tied to inflation still isn’t enough to shore up losses.

District leaders say they’ll have to make cuts to programs to balance the budget, but they haven’t shared which ones will be affected.

“We’ve got a long list of things that we’re going to be reducing or removing from our budget,” said Superintendent Joe Gothard. “We don’t have them itemized and certainly the result of this contract settlement could play a factor in that.”

At the St. Paul school board’s Feb. 20 meeting, district officials said it would be hard to avoid cuts affecting employees since they make up 80% of the budget.

“There’s no way we’re not going to touch people,” said Jackie Turner, the district’s chief of administration and operations.

Bargaining has been behind closed doors since mediation started in January, so it’s not exactly clear what each side is offering at this point.

Offers on both sides

But in the most recent publicly available offers, the union was seeking a $7,500 pay bump for all teachers and community service personnel in the district in the first year, and a 7.5% raise in the second year. They’re also asking for a $5.43-an-hour raise for educational assistants followed by a 7.5% raise in the second year.

Meanwhile, the district was offering a 2% raise in the first year, and a 3% increase for teachers at the lowest pay level.

St. Paul teachers have threatened to strike every bargaining cycle since 2018. The union went on strike for four days in 2020 and almost went on strike in 2018 and 2022.

In this year’s strike vote, two-thirds of the union’s 3,700 members voted, with 92% supporting the strike — far higher than the last two strike-authorizations.

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