April 27, 2006

MEMO TO: James A. Williams, Superintendent

FROM: Philip Rumore, President, BTF

RE: April 5, 2006 Correspondence

We are in receipt of your April 5, 2006 correspondence that arrived prior to the Spring break.

Please be advised that the BTF will not "drop [its] grievances, PERB proceedings and legal challenges to the insurance plan" as a pre-condition to resuming negotiations as per your letter.

As you know, the BTF, as always, worked tirelessly with our State affiliate and our great WNY Delegation to secure additional funding for our District. You have copies of the presentation we made at our meting with the WNY Delegation in Albany. Our documents, as you may know, were used to bolster our call for increased aid.

In addition to the BTF and our NEA-NY lobbyist, we worked with Gary Crosby so that we were all on the same page with the numbers.

As a result of all of our efforts, the District received one of the largest increases in memory. Indeed, it was close to what we were working toward. Now we hear that there is still a $12,000,000.00 shortfall and the reason for that shortfall is blamed mostly on the BTF that worked o hard to secure the additional funds.

The BTF therefore requests your budget projection in the ST-3 chart of accounts format used for New York State so that we can fully understand where the problems are.

While we didn't expect any acknowledgement for our work with you and our great WNY Delegation to secure this increase, we hardly expected (as obviously we should have) the Superintendent and Board to continue its attack on your teachers. James W. Williams, Superintendent - 2 - April 27, 2006

There has been no outcry by the Superintendent and the Board of the anticipated $12,000,000.00 increase in Charter payments (bringing the total to $62,000,000.00). That is the real cause of our Budget shortfall - an issue that was not addressed by the legislature. There was only an attack on the unions who have agreed that we should move to a single health insurance carrier but through negotiations not fiat and unilateral abrogation of our contracts.

Now that the amount of State aid is known, the BTF is, as we have been, willing to resume negotiations but without your pre-conditions and with the continued involvement of PERB.

Hopefully, we can reach an agreement on a new contract that will enable us to devote our full attention to the education of our students.

PR:ls

cc: Board of Education Members
BTF Executive Committee Members