Four years after losing her job to outsourcing, bus driver Stephanie Hicks will get a second chance to challenge the Central Point School District’s decision to lay off its own employees and hire a private contractor.
The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled April 22 that the Medford-area school district violated state law by using an inadequate and improper process for evaluating potential cost savings. The ruling overturns a decision by the Jackson County Circuit Court and orders the lower court to reconsider the case “consistent with this opinion.”
Generally, school districts and other state agencies can outsource government services by demonstrating that the change will save taxpayer money. However, a 2009 state law prohibits the change “if the sole reason” for the reduced cost is the potential contractor’s lower wages and benefits.
Union officials who represented Hicks in court praised the decision.
“The Oregon Legislature’s intent in passing the law was to ensure cost savings from outsourcing did not come solely from cuts to employee salaries and benefits,” Rick Shidaker, executive director of the Oregon School Employees Association, said in a statement.
Ed Edwards, the union’s director of government relations, said Hicks was one of about 20 bus drivers who lost their jobs during the outsourcing.
Edwards withheld judgment about the ultimate outcome of the case and whether Hicks and her former colleagues might get their jobs back. “We just want the district to go through the proper process,” he said.
He said the union has no other active cases that could be affected by the ruling, although other Oregon school districts have also switched to the same private contractor, First Student.
http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2015/04/laid-off_bus_driver_wins_orego.html