By Jamie Kelleher
The Public Employment Relations Board charged the Manhattan Beach Unified School District of “failing and refusing to meet and negotiate in good faith” with the Manhattan Beach Unified Teachers’ Association yesterday, following a 2013 complaint lodged by MBUTA while discussing teacher negotiations.
PERB charged MBUSD due to their prolonged withholding of documents requested by MBUTA during the 2012-2013 school year. PERB called for greater transparency and speed regarding future requests for documents by MBUTA and for MBUSD to provide updated versions of the documents originally requested.
“Hopefully this changes the district’s understanding that they are required to provide information to the union when the union makes these requests,” MBUTA President Shawn Chen said. “Essentially over the past two years they have told us, in response to our requests, that they are not required to give us this information.”
Documents revealing a budget discrepancy that relocated $1.03 million into an incorrect fund were discovered in April of 2014. These documents were included in the request during the previous year; however, the relocation of district funds did not occur until after the request had been filed. Although the request was initiated during the 2012-2013 school year, PERB found the district to have not fulfilled the request through the 2013-2014 school year.
“We’ll make every effort to communicate what we’re doing with future documents and make sure we’re doing it properly,” MBUSD Superintendent Michael Matthews said.
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