Teacher open-talks bill gets initial OK

By Ryan Morgan
Denver Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, March 18, 2003 - A bill requiring that employment contract negotiation sessions between teachers and their school boards be open to the public survived two Democratic attempts to kill it on the House floor Monday.

Instead, it won preliminary approval and will be up for a final vote later this week.
Sponsored by Rep. Rob Fairbank, R-Littleton, House Bill 1314 would "let the sunshine in" on the negotiations.

"I would ask for us to take a look at allowing the taxpayers to have some idea of how millions of dollars are being spent on teacher contract negotiations," he said.
Republican Rep. Don Lee of Littleton agreed.

"This could be a civics lesson for the children," he said. "It's much better to have it open to the public."

Current state law requires that public officials hold the vast majority of their meetings in public, but doesn't explicitly make that requirement for teachers' contract negotiations. Some school districts' meetings are public, while others hold theirs behind closed doors. The final contract, however, is public.

Democrats spoke up against the bill. Rep. Suzanne Williams, D-Aurora, said she supports the principle of Colorado's open-meetings law, and thinks that it should probably be expanded.
But, she said, "this bill is singling out teachers, and it's unfair."

Rep. Mike Merrifield, D-Manitou Springs, had another worry. Unlike legislative meetings, contentious school contract negotiation sessions don't have a sergeant-at-arms to keep order, he said, and could turn into a melee.

"If we have these negotiations open to the public, we're going to have a potentially dangerous, potentially frightening situation," he said.

But the floor debate itself soon took on an air of the potentially ridiculous a few minutes later, when Merrifield hopped up and down in front of the speaker's podium, incensed because it looked as though acting Speaker Rep. Ray Rose wouldn't recognize him to speak.

Rose relented, and Merrifield was able to speak again, denouncing a remark made by Republican Rep. Nancy Spence, who recalled "shakedowns" at the hands of teachers unions when she served as a school board member.

Several other Democrats criticized Fairbank's bill on the grounds that it violates the cherished Republican principle of local control.
"I think we should have faith that the school boards will do what they were elected to do," said Rep. Jack Pommer, a Boulder Democrat.

Officials at the Colorado Education Association, which came out against the bill, made similar criticisms.

"It is because the school district and its employees have determined how they want their negotiations to be held," spokeswoman Deborah Fallin explained. "They've decided at the local level how they're going to negotiate."