This weekend, Fig City News discussed the dynamics surrounding the current Newton Teachers Strike with Newton resident Matt Hills. A former member of the Newton School Committee (2010-2018; Chair 2014-2017), Hills is currently Vice Chair of the Board of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Interview notes are condensed for this article.
FCN: Can you explain to our readers what the context is for the legal rulings the Mayor and School Committee (SC) are emailing to residents?
Hills: On Friday, Massachusetts Superior Court granted an injunction against the Newton Teachers Association, thereby requiring the NTA to announce an end to the strike by 3PM Sunday, which has since passed without compliance. The judge’s ruling was absolutely to be expected and is in accordance with what happened in other districts. Whether one supports the union or not, it is illegal for public sector unions to strike in Massachusetts, therefore the state’s ruling that it’s an illegal work stoppage is obvious. [Author’s Note: NTA President Mike Zilles does not contest the illegality of the strike under Massachusetts law.]
FCN: What will happen in court this week?
Hills: The next step for the court to impose fines and potentially penalties against individual leaders, and this will be considered by the court if the Court’s injunction against striking is not complied with. In the recent past, the penalties started high and increase each day. What we don’t know is what will happen if the union and its individual leaders continue to defy the judge’s orders. That is contempt of court.
Let’s say you’re in Day 3 of fines and the judge has ordered a union’s members back to work, and still that court order is not being followed. Judges tend not to feel good when someone is disregarding a court order and thereby acting in contempt of the court. In this scenario, a judge could decide to increase the union’s fines and potentially impose personal penalties if the court order is still being ignored.
FCN: In other school districts in Massachusetts strikes have led to contracts. Will that happen in Newton?
Hills: Usually the strikes are short, typically 1-2 days. There are a small number that went a few days longer like Haverhill and Andover, but those all lasted a week or less. Dedham and I think Brookline were one day. Typically the deal that was agreed to had basically been on the table for several weeks before the strike, and the strike primarily just made a statement. I’d also say that the union would not describe their actions are just making a statement. In Andover, their School Committee did make concessions that they were not willing to make before strike. They weren’t radical, but they were meaningful changes, and now there are financial consequences for Andover’s school system.
Newton is different. The two sides are very, very far apart. It’s difficult to see how they can close the gap without someone making a major change that they currently view as impossible to make. The idea that they’re going to go on strike for a couple of days and dot i’s and cross t’s is not happening. There’s a fundamental mismatch between what the union understandably thinks it should get, and what the City can reasonably pay without causing significant financial distress for the rest of the city’s budget.
FCN: What about increasing the City of Newton’s budget contributions to Newton Public Schools?
Hills: If you look at the City’s budget, it’s difficult to increase the NPS allocation given the percentage of the budget spent on debt service and municipal services. The City can’t significantly and sustainably increase its schools allocation without causing distress in other parts of the budget. Municipal services like roads and sidewalks have been woefully underfunded for many years. You can’t just ignore all other city services that 100% of our residents depend on.
FCN: What about changing how Newton funds its pensions to free more money?
Hills: There’s a legitimate discussion over the appropriate amount to fund pension liabilities. However even delaying relatively small amounts of contributions for retirement liabilities doesn’t solve the issue permanently. At the margin, that could help NPS at the expense of pushing our retirement funding obligations further into the future, but then every year you would have to continue to decrease the amount you put into pension to make that a sustainable source of cash for NPS. The Mayor very strongly believes the City is balancing all of its needs and that Newton absolutely must continue to fund its unfunded liabilities, and not pretend that those liabilities will just magically disappear if we don’t fund them. Mayor Fuller believes this is what responsible leadership looks like, that we can’t just pretend pensions obligations are “funny money.”
[Author’s Note: Defined-benefit pension benefits for retired educators are paid by the State of Massachusetts via a dedicated pension plan. Other Post-Employment Benefits (“OPEB”) such as educator health care costs, as well as pension and OPEB for the City’s non-educator public employees such as fire, police, and municipal staff are paid by the City.]
FCN: What about new real estate development which would add to the City’s tax base?
Hills: Approximately 85% of the City’s revenue is property taxes, and there are some new construction and additions every year. Most of the city has been fully built up for a long time, and while new developments add to the tax base, those are small changes at margin. The commercial base is relatively small, especially compared to some other cities and town, although it’s larger than some smaller towns. So the good news is we have a very high level of certainty in projecting most of our revenue, and the bad news is that low variability means it won’t be much higher or lower than projected and we can’t just assume a big jump in property tax revenue. Additionally, all of the current NPS budget forecasts don’t account for the possibility of a recession. I was on the School Committee when state aid for Chapter 70 was under severe pressure. The state contributions to NPS’s budget are not guaranteed. That’s the financial reality the City lives in.
FCN: What about all the Free Cash in the City’s accounts that the Mayor has announced over the past several months?
Hills: Some years the City undershoots its revenue forecast, and some years it overshoots. There’s a significant pile of excess cash, and a perfectly reasonably decision would be to allocate a meaningful amount of to the schools, including using some to help settle the contract. And that’s exactly what the Mayor has agreed to do. It’s very poor policy and financial management to take that allocation of excess cash and build a large portion of it into a permanent cost structure, so that year after year you’re assuming excess cash will be available.
If you build that assumption into recurring expenses, you can fall off of a financial cliff, which is what happened to a certain extent the last two years during budget season — nobody should forget about the reductions that had to be made. The union can legitimately expect some portion of Free Cash to be used to help settle this contract, but the School Committee can’t put themselves in a position where it agrees to things it can’t continue to fund and thereby create future budget crises.
FCN: It sounds like you’re saying two different things, that the union is right to expect Free Cash to fund a contract but the School Committee can’t agree to one-time cash paying for recurring expenses. Can you explain?
Hills: Two things can be true at the same time. Some amount of excess one-time cash can be used to help settle a contract, but that’s not an invitation to pretend that large amounts can be used without creating a major unsolvable problem going forward. The School Committee’s reality is its financial constraints, and the union’s reality is what are other districts are getting. Impugning the other side’s reality may be great theater, but it’s not helpful for getting a deal done.
FCN: Why is this process so contentious?
Hills: In my experience over many years in private and public sector mediation, litigation, and collective bargaining, this is exactly the way it works. It’s standard for both sides to feel like they’re being jerked around by the other side. Claiming something’s not standard or being done bad faith doesn’t make it so.
FCN: Any other comments on this situation?
Hills: The union believes the strike is justified. I have known Mike Zilles for many years, both from when I was on Newton’s School Committee and spent years negotiating with him, and from when he was an outstanding Newton North teacher for one of my kids. Mike was an absolutely magnificent educator. Once again, two things can be true at the same time. Everything I just said about Mike is true, but the School Committee and many residents have every right to believe that we live in a nation of laws, and people don’t get to pick and choose which laws and court orders to follow.
This is a horrible situation for parents, but there could be something worse, and that’s an agreement that the School Committee can’t afford, and then we go through several years of budget layoffs. Look what’s happened the last couple of years. It sounds so easy to just say that we should significantly further increase the City’s allocation to NPS, but there are serious constraints in doing that in amounts much greater than the increases proposed. It may make someone feel better to come up with that magical solution, but it’s the School Committee’s job to deal with reality, not what makes them feel good.
Ed. Note: Newton Teachers Association president Mike Zilles submitted a statement in rebuttal to points raised by Matt Hills in this article.
