Cutting pay would be like tax on teachers, Nevada union chief says

Reducing pay is like a special tax on teachers and state workers and not other businesses and workers, the head of a teachers union said today before the governor’s State of the State speech.

“It’s balancing the budget on backs of teachers, who are not adequately paid for what they put into eduction,” said Ken Buhrmann, Washoe County Education Association president, who taught for 43 years.


Buhrmann and other Nevadans anxiously await Gov. Jim Gibbons state of the-state address at 6 p.m. tonight to deal with a $800 million budget shortfall over the biennium and a shrinking economy. He’s expected to call the Legislature into special session in late February and tell lawmakers where to focus their attention.


If part of the answer is a shorter school year, Buhrmann said he questions how Nevada schools will meet federal progress standards and compete for the state’s estimated $175 million share of federal education stimulus dollars. Gibbons wants to change a state law prohibiting student tests to be used in teacher evaluations to get a chance of getting that money.


School teachers as well as professors are worried about their jobs.
“Teachers are freaked out,” said Steve Mulvenon, spokesman for the Washoe County School District.

Gibbons proposed an Education Gift Certificate so people could send a check to a nonprofit group that would use the money for teacher salaries.


“What are we now, a charity case?” asked Ken Buhrmann, president of the 3,500-member Washoe County Education Association. “Quite frankly, it’s insulting.”


Buhrmann said teachers were already scared over their jobs and paychecks and his speech “scared them even more. This man is not our friend.”


“There was a lot of empty rhetoric, very few specifics and a lot of blaming,” he said.
“It is a mantra for give me your vote.”

The Nevada State Education association, the umbrella group for k-12 teacher bargaining units statewide will hold a rally protesting Gov. Jim Gibbons education budget proposals at the Nevada Legislative Building in Carson City 5-7 p.m.

The association also plans a rally 9 a.m.-noon Saturday Reno City Hall, City Council Chambers, 1 First St.

Members of local school districts are scheduled to picket in protest of possible pay cuts and/or layoffs to be weighed at a Legislative special session scheduled Feb. 23.