On February 27, we notified members of the $22 million budgetary shortfall in PPS’ second fiscal quarter. The District initially reported that they were able to mitigate $10 million, but the District’s financial team later reported that they were only able to manage an $8 million savings, leaving workers to cover $14 million dollars in deficit – either through midyear layoffs or furlough.

ATU, DCU, PAT, PFSP, and SEIU, met multiple times to collectively decide on the best course of action for our respective \\members. We also met together with the district to demand details of the budget process and private contract costs to ensure that all options were explored to reduce the shortfall before taking such drastic measures. The district has acknowledged that they are engaging in organizational restructuring at the highest levels of PPS and have reassured us that there will be transparency going forward. We intend to hold them to it, and have demanded regular budget reports for the remainder of this fiscal year. 

The outcome of our meetings was a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which details which days will be furloughed, how pay will be affected, and exceptions for retiring employees. You can read the tentative agreement here. 

In it, we agree to three furlough days – an unpaid, non-work day on a day you were previously scheduled to work. These furlough days will be May 1, June 8, and June 9. We successfully negotiated for the district to spread the loss of pay across three paychecks (April, May, and June checks). 192-day employees will be eligible to apply for summer unemployment benefits a week earlier. There are also limited exceptions for employees who declare their retirement before April 3.  

Our Executive Board has met extensively over the past three weeks to discuss how we can best alleviate the weight of the district’s mistakes on our members’ shoulders. While the PFSP constitution and bylaws allow for our President to sign MOUs on behalf of their members, the Executive Board will be meeting once again tonight to discuss the tentative MOU before it is signed on members’ behalf. 

We understand that asking our members to take any time unpaid, let alone three days, presents a significant burden. However, we overwhelmingly heard from workers across the union coalition that standing in solidarity with one another to protect from mid-year layoffs was something we are willing to do to protect one another. We are not responsible for this lack of foresight in the budgeting process and yet we are being asked to put our money on the table to help rectify it. As a PPS union coalition we successfully demanded that all supervisory staff, including Senior Leadership and the Superintendent acknowledge this truth and take additional furlough days beyond those of ATU, DCU, PFSP, and SEIU members. In recognition of the income disparity between bargaining units, PAT members have tentatively agreed to a fourth furlough day to further lessen the impact to our district’s lowest paid workers.

Fight for the workers, fight for the students, fight for each other

• Save the date - on May 1st, International Workers’ Day, we’ll be joining other PPS unions for a day of collective action. 
• Show your support for our sibling unions, PCCFCE and PCCFFAP who are currently on their second week of strike actions after 11 months of unsuccessful negotiations with PCC. 
• Attend the next Contract Action Team meeting, where rank-and-file members are organizing around our current contract negotiations to build towards a stronger new contract.
• Turn out for our next Open Bargaining Session on April 2nd, either in-person at the PEC or on Zoom
• Join AFT Oregon’s Politics, Policy, Legislation and Solidarity Council (PPLS). 

In solidarity,

Your PFSP Executive Board