MEMORANDUM

Memo To:   All Buffalo Teachers

From:         Philip Rumore, President, BTF

Date:          January 19, 2022

Subject:     Updates

Negotiations Update
As per our January 19, 2022 email, our financial analyst from NYSUT and the District’s Chief Financial Officer met with both teams and clarified our respective analyses. Some minor changes will be made and we will continue to work with Albany and the District to secure more funding. The District is in an excellent financial position, mostly thanks to our support.

We continued to clarify to which lesser cost items we had agreed.

As per our January 10, 2022 email, there were meetings on January 11, 14, 20 and meetings scheduled for January 25 and 26, 2022 with an “agreement to proceed expeditiously toward a settlement”. At our last January 20, 2022 negotiations, we agreed to add January 31, February 4, 11, 2022 to the dates.

We will continue to keep you informed. We will not rush into an agreement.
Note: An apparent attempt to enlist the support of the public with a letter to the Editor in The Buffalo News, from a teacher, has caused just the opposite. If you read the comments to the letter and have heard some of the comments in phone calls, etc. to BTF, just the opposite has occurred.

In addition, saying that there hasn’t been “any movement on a contract” (when as in our January 10 & 19, 2022 correspondence to teachers, we indicated there was movement), has not helped our negotiations and the support of the Board.

While we believe the intentions of the writer were intended to gain support, letters like these at this time do not help with the public or District.

When the time comes to go public and slam the District, we will.

Rather than just paint a picture of the cost-of-living for Buffalo teachers (which is the same for most) and Buffalo teachers’ wages, we will point to the salaries of those around us and the raises given in the past and proposed for District City Hall Administrators. (Those who have called have said “You get raises each year. We don’t.”)

Negotiations, like other such issues, are like a chess game. You must think five (5) or more moves ahead.

While the intentions of the teacher were well intended, they have caused issues.

Please, especially in public, think five to ten moves ahead. Make no mistakes that may weaken your position or cause you to lose the game.

District Phone Calls to Teachers
Teachers who want to prevent District robo-calls can apparently stop them by using:

https://www.buffaloschools.org//cms/module/selectsurvey/TakeSurvey.aspx?SurveyID=399