News from Thrun Law

A Michigan Employment Relations Commission (“MERC”) Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) recently held that a school district’s decision to unilaterally change from an 80/20 contribution to a “hard cap” during the term of a collective bargaining agreement, when hard cap was included in the agreement, vio­lated the Michigan Public Employment Relations Act (“PERA”). Garden City Pub Schs, Case No. C13 K-180 (April 25, 2014).

PA 152 requires public employers to limit their...

MERC recently rejected an unfair labor practice (“ULP”) charge alleging that the Pontiac School District violated a collective bargaining agreement by requiring teachers to collect student questionnaires and involuntarily transferring a teacher.  Pontiac Sch Dist, MERC Case No. C12 D-070 (March, 17, 2014).

After the collective bargaining agreement ex­pired, the district required its teachers to participate in a student questionnaire program. The district stat­ed that it would...

Michigan law requires a school board to adopt its budget before the beginning of the fiscal year (July 1). School officials should be aware of budget adoption legislation that took effect in 1995 (PA 40 of 1995), which significantly altered a school district’s obliga­tions for truth-in-taxation and budget adoption pro­cedures. That legislation permits a school district to dispense with the truth-in-taxation process if it takes certain steps as part of the budget adoption process.

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