This scenario was entirely predictable.
The latest call for an emergency manager in Metro Detroit is coming from an unlikely place — the affluent Northville Public Schools.Stalled contract negotiations between administrators and employees have school board members discussing the possibility of seeking an emergency manager, which under state law must be appointed by the governor.
Emergency managers have the power to void union contracts, remove administrators and take all control of the district’s actions.
The two sides have until the second week in August to come to terms on a two-year collective bargaining agreement. Union representatives and administrators bargained Tuesday, but Superintendent Mary Kay Gallagher said no progress was made.
“(An emergency manager) is a last resort,” Gallagher said. “That is most definitely something that is under consideration, but again that is a last resort.”
Here’s how it works:
- Snyder’s budget strips away money from the schools.
- The schools are forced into a bankruptcy situation.
- They turn to their employees and teachers for drastic concessions (a nearly 10% pay cut and no raises for two years in this case.)
- Because teachers have already given up much in recent years, they resist further cuts.
- The school district threatens the union with an Emergency Manager, an individual that has the power to come in an unilaterally wipe away their contracts.
Their diabolical plan is working out just as they hoped it would. It’s really a nearly perfect formula and with Democrats in the minority at all levels and unions already on their knees, there isn’t much that can be done about it.
Well, except this of course:
