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San Marcos Unified approves tentative labor deals with teachers and classified staff; disclosures show millions in costs
Summary
The board approved disclosure and ratified tentative agreements with the San Marcos Educators Association and CSEA Chapter 413 that include 1% on-schedule salary increases for 2024-25 and 2025-26 and estimated ongoing costs beginning in 2025-26 of about $4.4 million.
The San Marcos Unified School District board approved tentative collective bargaining agreements with its certificated and classified unions on March 13, disclosing the estimated fiscal impact before ratification.
The board first voted to approve the public disclosure of the tentative agreements. The disclosures, required under California law, estimated that the agreements provide a 1% on-schedule salary increase retroactive to July 1, 2024, and an additional 1% on-schedule increase effective July 1, 2025. Erin, a district staff presenter, said the district estimates total costs of $2.3 million in the current year (2024-25) and $4.4 million ongoing beginning in 2025-26.
The board then approved the tentative agreement with the San Marcos Educators Association (SMEA). Doctor Joel Garcia summarized the SMEA agreement: two-year term through June 30, 2026; 1% on-schedule increases for the current and next school year; a shared-cost model for health benefits; an increase in paid pregnancy disability leave from three to six weeks; and a new article establishing special-education caseload caps. Garcia said SMEA membership ratified the agreement.
The board also approved a tentative agreement with the California School Employees Association (CSEA) Chapter 413. Doctor Garcia said that agreement mirrors the pay increases, includes retiree-benefit language for eligible employees and a revised safety article, and runs three years, from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2027, with reopeners in 2025-26 and 2026-27. He said CSEA membership ratified the agreement.
Board members moved and seconded the motions; each motion carried. The meeting record shows the typical procedural roll call for labor negotiations, and staff certified that the district can afford the reported costs for the current budget year and the two subsequent years. District staff also said the county office of education reviewed the disclosure documents before the board vote.
What the agreements will mean for the budget: Erin told the board the second interim budget adopted the disclosures but had not yet incorporated the retroactive salary increases the board approved earlier in the meeting. She said adding the approved increases into the multiyear projections will raise the district's projected deficits (her presentation later in the meeting projected that including those increases would raise the 2024-25 deficit from about $4.8 million to about $6.8 million, and increase the 2025-26 and 2026-27 gaps accordingly).
No policy changes beyond contractual language were made; the board approved the agreements as presented and the motions carried.
