by Michael Howell
It’s important to read a contract before signing it. Members of the Corvallis Faculty Group, which includes the Montana Federation of Public Employees, American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association and American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations, are back on the job for the current school year 2024-2025 in the Corvallis School District, but working without a current contract. The 2023-2024 contract expired on July 1 of this year. Negotiations on a new contract began last May but so far, the faculty and School Board have not reached agreement on a new contract.
Although ongoing negotiations are taking place behind closed doors and those involved cannot comment publicly, last year’s contract negotiations were contentious, and the results went largely undiscussed and unreported in the press.
The major issue at that time was a proposed Matrix Stipend based on steps and lanes and longevity that would have benefited 14 of the most senior teachers who had been working in the District for 24 years or more. The Matrix Stipend had been included in the teacher’s contract since 2016. The School Board, however, approved a contract at their July 2023 meeting that did not include a Matrix Stipend, despite the fact that they had agreed in negotiations to include it.
A month later, in August 2023, the Corvallis Faculty Group filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the School District with the Board of Personnel Appeals (BPA). A contested case hearing was held in January of 2024 to determine if the District had violated the law when it refused to execute the Collective Bargaining Agreement with a stipend included when it was included in the tentative agreement signed by both parties. Also at issue was whether the District violated the law when it removed the stipend unilaterally and then approved the contract without it. At the hearing, Spencer Huls and Melanie Charlson provided sworn testimony on behalf of CFG. Pete Joseph, Mark Fournier, Dan Wolsky, and Ken Lewis testified on behalf of the District.
“Based upon the evidence elicited at the hearing and the arguments of the parties in their respective post-hearing briefs, Hearings Officer Jeffrey Doud issued a Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Recommended Decision recommending that the Board of Personnel Appeals determine the District committed an unfair labor practice when it failed to execute the written agreement reached between the parties and then unilaterally removed the Matrix Stipend before ratifying the CBA without this provision.
“As such, the District should be ordered to cease and desist from committing unfair labor practices with respect to the Matrix Stipend. Further, the District should determine those CFG faculty members who qualify for the Matrix Stipend based upon their current steps and lanes, and pay every qualifying CFG member the Matrix Stipend according to the terms [of the negotiated agreement],” stated Doud.
According to the Board of Personnel Appeals’ (BPA) findings of fact in the case, the parties’ ground rules established that “[a]ll proposals shall be in writing in contract language,” and “[a]ll Tentative Agreements shall be documented and verified by both parties.”
The CFG presented an initial proposal including a one-time stipend in the amount of $1,500 per Full Time Employee meant to replace the Matrix Stipend, but this was rejected by the District “due to budgetary issues.” According to the BPA Order, the District’s bargaining team believed that they had made it clear that they had rejected all stipends and that a Matrix Stipend would not be included in any future negotiations. But CFG’s bargaining team believed that the District had only rejected the proposed $1,500 stipend, and that a Matrix Stipend could still be negotiated.
In its second proposal CFG removed the $1,500 FTE proposal but re-inserted the Matrix Stipend. After CFG presented its second proposal, the parties agreed to remove some paragraphs unrelated to the Matrix Stipend, however, there was no discussion between the parties regarding CFG’s proposal to reduce the Matrix Stipend from their original $1,500 proposal to the ordinary stipend during the May 22 negotiation session.
According to the Order, the District did not raise CFG’s proposed Matrix Stipend because they believed that they had made it clear that there would not be a stipend of any kind in the CBA due to the budgetary issues the District was facing.
It states in the Order that CFG then presented a third proposal which included the same Matrix Stipend language that CFG had included in its second proposal and after some discussion the parties believed they had an agreement.
Every member of both the District’s and CFG’s respective bargaining teams signed CFG’s third proposal, thereby making it the Tentative Agreement (Tentative Agreement) that the parties were to take to their respective organizations for voting and ratification.
According to the Order, members of the District’s bargaining team neither read the proposal nor recognized that it contained the Matrix Stipend language.
The CFG members ratified the agreement, but when it went before the District, board member Mark Fournier stated that the draft CBA contained an error and claimed that the one-time stipend had sun-setted, and that the District had not negotiated for the new stipend. Following a discussion, Fournier moved for ratification of the CBA with the exception that the Matrix Stipend be removed.
The District voted, unanimously, in favor of Fournier’s motion.
This was followed by CFG’s complaint alleging the parties had reached a Tentative Agreement on a CBA for the 2023-2024 school year, which was reduced to writing and accepted by both sides, and that the District’s decision to unilaterally remove the Matrix Stipend constitutes a failure to negotiate in good faith. CFG also argued that the District ratification of the CBA, without the Matrix Stipend, violated the requirement that the parties reduce their agreement in a written instrument.
In his discussion of the issues, Hearing Officer Jefferey Doud notes, “A ‘meeting of the minds’ in contract law is based upon the objective terms of the contract rather than on the parties’ subjective understanding of the terms. Thus, subjective understandings (or misunderstandings) of the meaning of terms that have been agreed to are irrelevant, provided that the terms themselves are unambiguous ‘judged by a reasonable standard’.”
“While the District argues that they never agreed to the Matrix Stipend, the undeniable fact is that every member of the District’s negotiating team signed CFG’s Proposal 3 as a Tentative Agreement. While the District’s witnesses testified that they did not intend for the Matrix Stipend to be part of the CBA, and, as such, they assert there was never a meeting of the minds, to accept such an argument would require the Hearing Officer to act in direct violation of the above authority and examine the subjective intent of the District’s bargaining team.”
He adds, “Accepting the District’s argument would also require the Hearing Officer to overlook a bedrock principle of contract law; i.e. that a person who executes a contract is deemed to know the contents thereof… Whether they took the time to read it and fully understand all the terms is immaterial. They executed the Tentative Agreement which is an acknowledgement that the parties had reached an agreement with respect to every term or provision included therein.”
Since there was no ambiguity in the document about what was agreed to, Doud states that “the integrity of written contracts would be destroyed if contracting parties, having admitted signing the instrument, were allowed to rescind the contract on the basis they neither read nor understood the expressed agreement.”
The Board’s holding establishes that a party will be bound by the terms included in a written agreement that they executed, whether they subjectively bargained for that provision or not.
“Since it has been determined that a valid agreement existed between the parties, the District’s refusal to execute the 2023 CBA with all the terms set forth in the parties’ Tentative Agreement constitutes an unfair labor practice in violation of [the law],” wrote Doud.
He also found that, “Regardless of its belief as to whether the Matrix Stipend was an error, once the parties executed the Tentative Agreement, the District was obligated to notify CFG of its intent to augment or remove any provision with respect to wages. It did not do so, and, as a result, violated [the law].”
“Given the facts of this case, CFG’s requested remedy is the only remedy that can rectify the unfair labor practices committed by the District,” wrote Doud. “Therefore, payment of the Matrix Stipend, for the 2023-2024 school year, should be made to any CFG member who qualifies for the Matrix Stipend based upon their current steps and lanes in the amounts specified…”
Doud recommended that the Board determine the District committed an unfair labor practice when it failed to execute the written agreement reached between the parties and then unilaterally removed the Matrix Stipend before ratifying the CBA without this provision.
“As such, the District should be ordered to cease and desist from committing unfair labor practices with respect to the Matrix Stipend. Further, the District should determine those CFG faculty members who qualify for the Matrix Stipend based upon their current steps and lanes, and pay every qualifying CFG member the Matrix Stipend according to the terms set out in the Appendix to the 2022 CBA,” he wrote.
No Notice of Exception was filed against the recommendations by the School Board and the District and every qualifying CFG member received their Matrix Stipend for 2023-2024 with no public discussion by the School Board concerning the complaint or its resolution.
Spencer Huls, who testified at last year’s hearing on behalf of the CFG, said that when the School Board unilaterally altered a tentative contract agreement (TA) reached by negotiating teams of both groups, the CFG had no option but to file an Unfair Labor Practice complaint against them. He said that the section removed from the agreement contained a stipend which had been paid for the previous seven years for the district’s most veteran teachers.
“Removing this stipend would have allowed approximately 14 teachers to be paid less in the ‘23-’24 school year than in the previous year,” said Huls. “While the CFG did not want to pursue arbitration in this matter, it was and continues to be our obligation to protect all members and their best interests.”
Contacted by the Star last week, School Board Chair Dan Wolsky, who was out of state at the time, emailed saying that he would provide some comment by Sunday. He emailed on Sunday saying he was “in and out of coverage” and suggested that Vice Chair Ken Lewis be contacted for comment. Lewis did not respond in time for publication.
Although the 2023-2024 contract expired on July1, teachers continue this year to work while the 2024-2025 contract is still being negotiated. These discussions take place behind closed doors and it is not known if the Matrix Stipend is at issue or not in the current negotiations.