Opinion: Surplus revenues are often moments of contention within union negotiations. Participatory budgeting policies can help ease tensions while bringing in community support.
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The Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) went on strike in November, marking the closure of the state’s largest school district, Portland Public Schools. This strike also marks the first strike ever within the school district, closing over 80 schools except for charter schools.
After months of bargaining between the PAT and the Portland Public School District (PPS), the union voted to authorize the strike. The Portland Association of Teachers’ agenda focuses on six main negotiating principles: cost of living increases, class size reductions, planning times, mental health support for students and improvement for special education and funding in cleaning infrastructure.
The initial proposal would have created a $200 million difference between proposals from the union and the proposed plan from the teachers’ union. PAT’s most recent bargaining brief, which was sent out on Nov. 14, reduced the gap by $121.6 million over the span of the three-year agreement. However, this modified the initial goals of strict class regulations by allowing students to be added to classes if approved by a school-based “class size committee.”
One of the union’s top priorities is re-investing surplus revenue within students through the six main tasks the PAT outlined.
“We have built up, responsibly, $105 million fund balance. We were expending half of that amount because we decided to hold onto several dozen additional teachers this school year and reinvest those back in our school,” Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero said in a press conference. “That leaves 40-some million dollars left in our reservoir. We have to maintain it, and we made a decision to maintain a five percent reserve… We have a current level of resources, and it’s being spent directly into our school.”
Guerrero also mentioned that there are nearly a dozen more administrative positions within the building than required through statute law.
Although it is important to acknowledge that there was a historic $10.3 billion investment in education in 2023, the estimated costs to fund the standards of education proposed by the state legislature would cost $12 billion.
Another leading grievance that both PPS and PAT share is the lack of educational funds allocated to schools, which can exacerbate the current debates.
Currently, many of the complaints from those who are striking are regarding the allocation of surplus revenue from the school district and how often the budgeting process can leave out vulnerable voices.
On the PAT website, Tiffany Koyama Lane, a PPS parent and teacher, said, “There isn’t enough room in the classroom, so I have to turn a heater into a desk. I use bookshelves and stools to make seats. I have kids sitting on the windowsill.”
Another from the PAT website, Samara Bockelman, a counselor at PPS, said, “There are not enough of us in terms of educators and support staff — if there were fully supported teams at every school with full-time social workers, full-time counselors, full-time qualified mental health professionals and school psychologists, we could work with students, make a plan with each student and follow up, to help them manage their feelings and anxiety and set them up to focus on their learning and education.”
School participatory budgeting also elevates student voice and leadership by allowing qualified student voters to participate in fiscal decisions. Many 16-year-olds have to pay taxes within the jobs they hold, and they should have a direct stake in how their educational experience is run.
These concerns show a need for more community voices in the process of budgeting and policing; incorporating participatory budgeting would effectively cover many of the concerns in a democratic process.
Participatory budgeting is a democratic process designed to give all stakeholders a direct voice and can be utilized to reinvest in community-driven ideas for surplus revenues. A percentage of the surplus revenues should be saved for a rainy day fund, but these numbers should be a conservative estimate.
To avoid further negotiation conflicts between teacher unions and school boards, surplus revenues should be decided by community members in participatory budgeting.