Anne Arundel County teachers will learn today whether the school board intends to follow the County Council's lead and lift pay freezes imposed by County Executive Janet S. Owens.
The day after the council defeated a pay freeze for public safety union members, a few hundred teachers held a rally yesterday in rainy Annapolis to protest, among other issues, the proposed freeze on their salaries.
The rally capped a month-old "work-to-rule" job action at more than half the county's 117 schools, where teachers have been working the minimum hours required by their contracts.
Teachers union President Sheila Finlayson said members want all of the salary increases that were negotiated in their contracts, including cost-of-living raises. Though their contract runs through next year and calls for $15 million in raises, the raises are tied to the county's financial situation.
Teachers won't be satisfied by getting just the raises tied to length of service that some other county employees won back Monday, Finlayson said.
"I expect more than that," she said. "[Today] isn't the end of it. This is going to be an ongoing battle."
The school board will meet today to approve its budget for next fiscal year, and Superintendent Eric J. Smith is "working the issue up to the last moment and hopes there will be a partial resolution," said Jane Beckett-Donohue, a spokeswoman for Smith.
The new fiscal year begins July 1.
On Monday, members of five employee unions won at least a temporary victory when the council defeated a bill that would have permitted the county to freeze their salaries for the next fiscal year. Two council members voted against the freeze, which needed four votes to pass; two abstained because they have relatives who are public safety workers.
But immediately after the council voted down the freeze - throwing the budget off balance by nearly $1.5 million - Owens said she would lay off about 35 employees to balance it.
Owens met with her staff yesterday to determine "the least painful combination of alternatives for all employees," said her spokeswoman, Jody Couser. No decisions were announced.
Besides ordering layoffs, Owens could raise health care rates for members of the five employee unions. She could also eliminate vacant positions.
Council members who voted against the wage freeze are pushing for her to tap money set aside as a cushion against further cuts in state aid.
Last month, the council unanimously approved an $895 million operating budget for next fiscal year that was based on wage freezes for nearly all county employees, including teachers. For that budget to work, the council needed to pass the legislation Monday that allowed the wage freeze for five of the county's nine employee unions - the unions whose contracts expire June 30 and that have not reached a new agreement.
Those unions represent many of the county's public safety employees as well as technical and clerical workers.
Police officers and firefighters are "waiting with bated breath" to see whether Owens follows through with her threats to lay off public safety workers and possibly increase health care costs, the police union president said.
"We're expecting retaliation from her," said O'Brien Atkinson, president of the local Fraternal Order of Police.
The police union abandoned a planned protest of wage freezes and staffing vacancies after Monday's vote, Atkinson said. "Of course," he said, "that could change as we await the inevitable backlash from the county."
Officers had planned to work in teams of two or more at all emergency situations and routine police actions, including traffic stops. Atkinson acknowledged that the protest probably would have driven up the time it takes to respond to calls from county residents.
