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El Paso County is suing the state over a Colorado Law that allows county employees to join unions. The law is set to take effect in July. News5's Ashley Portillo explains how this impacts you and your money.

Posted at 12:23 AM, May 17, 2023

and last updated 4:47 AM, May 17, 2023

EL PASO COUNTY — El Paso County is suing the state about a Colorado law that allows county employees to form unions. The law is set to take effect in July.

El Paso County commissioners have been vocal in their opposition since Senate Bill 22-230 bill made its way through the state legislature last year. It applies to counties with more than 7,500 people.

County commissioners call this an "unfunded mandate,” meaning they will have to pay millions out of local taxpayer dollars to acquire the proper staff to conduct the contract negotiations. They also worry the unfunded mandate would jeopardize service to citizens.

Today, county commissioners, along with support from Fremont and Elbert counties agreed this is over-reach, and that they should not be involved in negotiating all county employee contracts.

“I am asking the state legislature, if they wish to do something, use state taxpayer dollars, do not use local money. We've got roads to fix. We've got public safety to address and we need to ensure those are fully funded,” said Stan VanderWerf, El Paso County Commissioner, District 3.

“Here we have ended up with a very unclear policy that is causing a lot of problems for counties,” said Carrie Geitner, El Paso County Commissioner, District 2. She added that many county employees have already been approached about wanting to join a union.

“The bill was signed into law and almost instantly, union representatives began harassing and intimidating our county employees to join they're failing organizations lurking outside of county buildings, confronting them at their homes, leading some to considering filing harassment reports to law enforcement,” said Geitner.

News5 also reached out to one of the bill's sponsors, Daneya Esgar, who is a former state representative from Pueblo. Esgar called the lawsuit disappointing. She says a number of amendments were made to the bill to help counties. She also added that county employees deserve to have a stake at the table when it comes to pay for the important work they do.

According to the fiscal note on the bill, this law will cost a county like El Paso County more than $2 million dollars for staffing costs.

Last year, more than 170 elected county officials from all across Colorado signed a letter asking Governor Polis to veto the bill. In 2019, Colorado Springs voters also voted down collective bargaining privileges for Colorado Springs firefighters.

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After nearly two weeks of prolonged contract bargaining, Colorado Springs School District 11 administrators and the Colorado Springs Education Association, a union representing about 60% of district teachers, reached a tentative agreement Tuesday.

The agreement starts teacher salary at $50,000; provides a 5% cost of living adjustment to all teachers; and will pay teachers a 6% non-recurring bonus across two paychecks, one in November and one in May; and honors steps and lanes. This contract would apply to all D-11 teachers regardless of their CSEA membership status.

“District 11 is sticking a flag in the ground, saying that we want you. We want your collaborative contribution in this district,” said Darren Joiner, the D-11 northeast area superintendent.

CSEA will next present the agreement to teachers on Thursday at the Tesla Educational Opportunity Center. CSEA members will then vote on whether they want to ratify and have an answer for the district by next Tuesday on whether it passed or failed. The school board of education will then hold its own ratification vote on behalf of the district.

Although not unheard of, the routine annual bargaining process rarely extends so late.

“That’s not how the majority of our sessions go. It’s just, this is kind of par for the course when it gets to the money talk because it’s a contentious topic, but outside of that we really do collaborate and work well as a group,” said Adrienne Propsom, CSEA member and math teacher at Coronado. “I’d like encourage everybody in the room to continue to advocate for your rights, whether that’s in the board room, or coming into these sessions, or standing up for your students.”

Much of the concern focused on the district’s proposed change to teacher salary schedule. The current schedule uses “lanes and steps” for teacher pay. Lanes consider education credentials, such as degrees and hours of graduate studies completed. Steps consider longevity, or how many years a teacher has been teaching. The proposal added a third, previously unaccounted for factor into salary calculations.

D-11 administration pushed for a “pay for collaborative contribution” salary model in which teachers would be rewarded with higher compensation for participating in additional duties such as joining a committee or chairing a department. Negotiations determined this model will not take effect for the time being.

A task force composed of at least three CSEA-appointed teachers and three administration-appointed members will begin working in August on an evaluation rubric that will lay out standards for professional engagement and identify how staff can fulfill those requirements, according to a district presentation during the Tuesday bargaining session. No pay will be tied to performance next school year while the task force works out details on how this model could work.

Concerned teachers drew comparisons between the district’s proposal and a pay-for-performance schedule, which had a controversial run at another local district.

Harrison School District 2 was among the first in Colorado to implement a pay-for-performance system in 2010 in an effort to boost student performance.

Many employees initially liked the idea, which replaced the traditional salary increases with a merit system that placed high expectations on teachers, administrators and students, and required frequent testing. Employees who met effectiveness benchmarks were rewarded with higher salaries.

However, by 2019, the system had not been upgraded and D-2’s raises and salaries were lagging other districts in the area. The district suspended the compensation model for the 2019-2020 school year to study its effectiveness before eliminating it completely.

D-11 administrators maintained their proposal was not a pay-for-performance model because there is no link between student achievement and salary. CSEA disagreed.

“It’s emphasized that this is not ‘pay for performance,’ it’s not pay for student test score performance. We get that, but it is clearly pay for performance on various other non-teaching tasks,” CSEA President Joe Schott said at the May 8 session.

The two parties worked through revised language pertaining to the salary schedule and accompanying task force before reaching an agreement Tuesday.

“This is what problem solving should look like, and it was really, really good this year,” Schott said. “You all didn’t see that. That’s too bad because everybody worked really hard, and it produced an excellent result.”

After a parent-led campaign and an influx of negative feedback, Academy School District 20 in February postponed changes to its school start and end times shortly after they were announced in order to solicit community input. Parents say that input was ignored.

The district on Friday released a ranked-choice survey with two new options alongside its initial proposed change, none of which account for parents’ concerns over the 40-minute gaps between each school level. A change is anticipated to take effect during the 2024-2025 school year.

“People feel like this whole thing was a slap in the face,” district parent-of-two Lindsey Jensen said. “It was kind of like checking a box, like, ‘Oh, shoot, they’re mad we didn’t talk to them. They’re mad we didn’t send out a survey. Let’s do that really fast and then do what we want.’”

D-20 currently operates under a staggered schedule in which schools start and end at various times. District leaders announced their plan at a Jan. 19 board meeting to standardize these times under a three-tier system this fall, citing more sleep time for students as the primary motivation and the alleviation of transportation issues as a secondary reason. All elementary schools would run 7:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., high schools would run 8:10 a.m.-3:15 p.m. and middle schools would run 8:50 a.m.-3:55 p.m. Challenger Middle School was the one exception, running 8:20 a.m.-3:25 p.m.

In addition to this initial proposal, the new survey includes the following two options:

Option B: Middle school runs 7:30 a.m.-2:35 p.m., high school runs 8:10 a.m.-3:15 p.m. and elementary school runs 8:50 a.m.-3:55 p.m.

Option C: Middle school runs 7:45 a.m.-2:50 p.m., high school runs 8:25 a.m.-3:30 p.m. and elementary school runs 9:05 a.m.-4:10 p.m.

“The family unit is kinda destroyed in these scenarios. My kids when they’re in elementary and middle school for those three years are not going to see each other. There’s a three-hour difference in what they would normally have for home time,” Jensen said.

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Among parents’ primary concerns were early morning bus stops — sometimes before sunrise — for elementary-aged students and unrealistic morning and afternoon commutes that could span more than two hours each way, according to a statement provided by D-20. Whereas the district was able to address the first concern, it was not able to address the second “based on the geography of the district and times required to redeploy (buses) between start times.”

“In the future if additional routes can be delivered and transportation can be staffed at 100% the turnaround time between start times can be reduced,” the statement reads. “This has been a multiple year process and the current plan is to make a decision under the current Superintendent so that staff and families have more than a year before implementation begins in the fall of 2024.”

The 40-minute difference between start times is the minimum duration necessary for buses to run their routes, Chief Operating Officer Brett Smith said at the January meeting. Streamlining times under the new schedule would decrease bus routes by 10%, thus freeing up buses for more field trips, activities and athletics that the understaffed transportation department sometimes has to cancel because of a lack of drivers.

School board members said this was only the beginning of a greater discussion to come. A final decision was made five days later.

Parents organized in opposition to the change and flooded school board meetings to outline the impact such a move would have on their lives. Jensen created a petition urging the district to reverse course and amassed support from more than 2,000 people within a week.

The district walked back its decision a week later, pushing any changes to the following school year and scheduling a series of eight town halls to hear from the community.

District parent-of-two Mariah McCarty said she followed along with recaps from each of the town halls and noticed a slight shift in the district’s approach over time. Whereas the decision appeared more set-in-stone during earlier meetings, she said administration officials appeared more empathetic toward community concerns during later meetings.

She was hopeful before the survey landed in her inbox.

“Overall, I felt pretty discouraged about the fact that they gave us these three choices, and none of them are ideal, and it doesn’t seem like any of them took into consideration parents or (students) needs, especially on having a 7:30 start on any of the options,” said McCarty, whose soon-to-be middle and high school children will have to share a morning commute regardless of their official start times. “I don’t see where the extra sleep is happening.”

Jensen and other D-20 parents started a new petition once again calling for the district to reverse course. About 200 parents have signed on in support as of Monday afternoon, many of whom said the district’s claimed intention of improving sleep schedules is a veiled excuse for trying to address the transportation crisis at hand.

“The problem with this plan is trying to force a three tier bus system. The district needs to drop that idea all together and find a different way to address the (busing) problem,” one signer wrote in support of the petition.

“We shouldn’t be punished for having families. Especially not at the convenience of the school district,” wrote another.

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Starting pay for teachers in a Colorado Springs school district may be going up next year. This is part of a tentative agreement reached between a teacher's union and District 11. News5's Ashley Portillo has the latest on that and what it means for educators in the district, and what the superintendent is saying.

Posted at 11:22 PM, May 18, 2023

and last updated 4:37 AM, May 19, 2023

COLORADO SPRINGS — Starting pay for teachers in a Colorado Springs School District 11 may be going up next year. It’s part of a tentative agreement reached between a teacher's union and the district.

After nearly 2 1/2 weeks of bargaining over pay, the district and the teacher's union reached a tentative agreement on Tuesday. The superintendent said it was a win-win for both sides, but some teachers say more needs to be done.

The tentative agreement includes a starting teacher salary of $50,000, which is a 20% pay bump.

“When we looked at starting teacher salary, District 11 has traditionally been the lowest or the second lowest in the area,” said Michael Gaal, the superintendent for D11.

Plus all teachers will get a 5% cost of living raise, and a 6% bonus added over two paychecks. Gaal said with teacher shortages and vacancies, pay has to be competitive.

“It’s no longer about chasing after what neighboring districts are doing. It's about District 11 planting a flag, that says we believe that the secret to student achievement is the highest quality instruction with the highest quality instructors in the classrooms,” said Gaal.

The tentative agreement that was made is also a 16% net increase for teachers salaries across the board. Gaal added that the district made strategic choices in the tentative agreement to raise compensation in spaces and roles that are closest to the classroom.

However more experienced teachers like Lori Watson say the pay bump still isn't enough, and they should've gotten a 20% increase too.

“It should have been a reward for everybody, not just the younger ones to bring in $50,000,” said Watson. “A lot of your older teachers are your mentor teachers who have experience and have things to add, so they felt like it should go across the board.”

Another big point of contention early on was the district's proposed pay schedule. Disagreements on that even forced classes to be canceled at Doherty High School in early May. Watson was one of the teachers who didn’t teach that day too, to show support at the bargaining contract meeting.

“Teachers were against that. They got very upset and started going to the meetings and making sure that their voice was heard,” said Watson. “This is the first time that we've seen teachers that aren't union members, coming out to say we don't want this either.”

The proposed pay schedule will not take effect, but a task force will spend the next year studying how a structure like that would work.

Watson said compromises were made on both sides.

“In the end, I believe it was it was jointly decided and everybody didn't agree on everything, but we're okay about coming to the middle and finding a middle point,” said Watson.

“I think it's a huge opportunity and a huge win-win for all sides,” said Gaal. “I don't believe it was contentious whatsoever. It took many times for us to get to the space that we got to and we need to be more cognizant of that.”

The contract will apply to all D11 teachers even if they are not a part of the union. The proposed contract was presented to teachers tonight, and if they ratify it by next Tuesday, it goes to the school board to make it official for next school year.

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Copyright 2023 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Jeremy Bloom, who was an Olympic skier before going on to play in the National Football League, remembers watching downhill skiers in the 1992 Winter Games and feeling an initial spark of inspiration at age 10.

“I thought, ‘This is what I want to do,'” said Bloom, a member of the U.S. Skiing Hall of Fame.

Melissa Stockwell, a former Army officer, lost her left leg when her vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in Iraq. When she learned about the Paralympic Games, she knew she had to be a part of them.

“I could represent my country on the world’s biggest athletic stage — same venues, same idea as the Olympic Games — it was kind of like I had a second chance. I knew that after I lost my leg that somehow, some way, I wanted to be a Paralympian.”

Edwin Moses was just beginning to find his niche as a teen athlete when he watched Ugandan runner John Akii-Bua run the 400-meter hurdles in a world-record 47.82 seconds during the 1972 Olympics.

“I was in high school, I was just learning how to run hurdles,” said Moses. “I used to fantasize about being this guy.”

Four years later, Moses would break Akii-Bua’s Olympic and world record, running the 400 hurdles in 47.63 seconds. A year after that, he would begin a nearly 10-year undefeated streak, winning 122 consecutive races between 1977 and 1987.

The three elite athletes spoke about inspiration, equity, access and a host of other topics during a Thursday morning panel at the 10th annual Project Play Summit. More than 600 people from across the U.S. attended the conference, which focuses on building healthy communities by increasing participation in youth sports.

Physically active children generally grow up to be physically active, and therefore healthier, adults. But less than 1 in 4 U.S. children 6 to 17 years of age participate in at least an hour of physical activity each day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Much of this year’s summit was centered on combating some of the damage wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A national campaign aimed at having 63% of kids involved in sports by 2023 had begun to make headway, but the pandemic halted that progress. Barely over half of U.S. children played sports in 2021, officials said.

Bloom, Stockwell and Moses talked about using inspiration to get kids involved in sports. Budding athletes are often inspired during and after the Olympic Games, but for some of them, that energy begins to wane as the Games retreat into memory.

The panelists suggested figuring out a way to keep Olympians visible in the four-year period between Olympics and getting some of the best sports minds together to come up with innovative programs to stoke young people’s competitive fire during that time.

Stockwell, who has two young children, suggested that parents try to come up with fun ways to keep their kids interested in staying active.

“Whether it is at the grassroots level, in your driveway, in your neighborhood or at the elite level, (physical activity) does so much for all of us,” she said.

Moses said parents, educators and other adults need to “find a collaborative way to get kids outside.”

“When you go by parks today, you don’t see kids mobbing the park like they did in my generation,” Moses said. “We need to figure out a way to make kids want to go outside.”

NFL teams are in the midst of spring drills. But Chris Harris Jr. isn’t planning to join one now.

Teams will start training camp in late July. But Harris isn’t expecting to head anywhere then.

The regular season will begin in early September. Now that will get Harris’ attention.

Harris, a star cornerback with the Broncos from 2011-19, is a free agent after playing with the Los Angeles Chargers from 2020-21 and the New Orleans Saints last season. He wants to play a 13th NFL season, but it has to be on his terms.

“(Teams) pretty much know I’m not planning on doing any training camp or anything like that,’’ Harris, who turns 34 on June 18, said in an interview with The Denver Gazette. “I’ll do the same thing I did last year. I’m not doing training camp and all that OTAs (organized team activities in the spring) and stuff like that anymore.”

After last year sitting out spring drills, training camp and the start of the regular season as a free agent, Harris was signed Oct. 4 to the Saints’ practice squad. He soon was promoted to the active roster, and got into 10 games, starting four.

Having made four Pro Bowls, gotten a first-team All-Pro nod and being named to the All-Decade Team of the 2010s, Harris feels he has earned the right to not have to play in a structured environment to get ready for a season. He said he stays in great shape during the offseason in Dallas.

“Just taking it day-by-day,’’ he said. “Just enjoying this free time. I’m in no rush.”

Before he commits to a possible 13th season, Harris wants to spend as much time as he can with his family, which includes wife Leah and four daughters. His daughters, ranging in age from 3 to 8, play soccer and softball.

Considering what Harris did in his nine Broncos seasons, that does beg the question: Would he ever consider returning to Denver?

“I’ll definitely be able to come and visit,’’ he said. “I don’t know about playing. I think they’re in a different era now. They pretty much cleaned out (players). They got a whole new team now, whole new coaches. It’s a whole new organization. New owners.”

Harris, who went undrafted in 2011, played for the Broncos under head coaches John Fox, Gary Kubiak and Vance Joseph and had a year under Vic Fangio in 2019. Fangio was fired after the 2021 season. Denver then had Nathaniel Hackett and interim coach Jerry Rosburg last year. And now Sean Payton is in his first year in charge.

The pinnacle of Harris’ career was winning a Super Bowl with the Broncos after the 2015 season. He would welcome the opportunity to get another ring.

“I want to wait and see what team has a great chance to win a Super Bowl and then try to hop on with them,’’ he said.

Harris believes he could help a team that “needs another veteran presence.” And he made note of not having been moved away from outside cornerback, which is what happens to some in their 30s.

“I feel ready to go,’’ he said. “I don’t have any issues. I feel great. I haven’t even got a chance to play safety or anything like that. I’ve been playing corner for 12 years. I definitely still got a lot left.”

It must be said, though, that Harris won’t really be ready to go until September gets much closer.

Economic indicators point to a nation poised for recession, Colorado Springs economist Tatiana Bailey said Wednesday during a presentation to area business leaders at The Pinery.

Similar to most economists, Bailey expects a shallow recession in the second half of 2023 and early 2024. The recession likely will be mild, she said, because of the country’s strong labor market, among other factors, although the labor market poses its own challenges, too.

Colorado appears positioned to fare slightly better than the nation overall, and El Paso County’s workforce situation seems to be on better footing than most of the state, Bailey said.

“It’s somewhat a tale of two economies,” Bailey said.

Inflation, higher interest rates and decreased consumer and business spending are the main culprits for the suspected economic downturn, she said.

Other factors including a strong housing market, high employment levels and legislation such as the The CHIPS and Science Act, a bill designed to incentivize domestic semiconductor manufacturing, could ease the intensity of a recession.

With high employment levels come high wages, causing business growth to slow along with global competitiveness.

And the nation’s tight labor market is not predicted to change anytime soon thanks to demographics that show an aging population, lower birth rates, a decline in male labor participation and less legal immigration.

“The linchpin to sustainable economic growth and increased global competitiveness is an increase in labor participation,” Bailey said.

In other words, more people need to work for the U.S. to be successful.

That’s where El Paso County has the upper hand with a population likely to grow by more than 200,000 between 2020 and 2050 to more than 1 million (one of the biggest increases in Colorado), a slightly younger population with an average age of 35 as opposed to the state’s average of 38, and opportunity within high-demand sectors such as health care.

“We’re projected to have about 60,000 new jobs in El Paso County between now and 2030,” Bailey said.

“And we have been meeting the number of new jobs needed to match population growth.”

That’s why training and attracting workers for proper jobs are essential. Bailey noted that with student loan debt near $2 trillion, second only to mortgage debt, and only a 50% graduation rate, college students are collecting bills without a degree.

In El Paso County, students living in the lowest earning brackets of the city’s school districts have the lowest high school graduation rates, Bailey said.

But families and individuals in the lower income brackets could see the wealth gap lessen with wage increases due to the tight labor market. Wage increases also could spur labor force participation, homeownership and business growth, Bailey said.

“We have an increasing population and continued in-migration, including educated people and people of all skills,” Bailey said of the county.

“(And) decreasing inflation and higher wages, so inflation is slowly but surely coming down, and wages are not going to come down. The worst that’s going to happen is they’re going to stay where they are ... and that’ll help keep up personal consumption expenditures. That’s part of the reason I also say it’s a mild recession.”