Comp Time: A Workplace Idea Whose Time Has Come

Details: 26 Apr 2013; Published Date

By U.S. Representative Martha Roby
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Should a working dad be forced to use up all of his vacation time in order to be involved in his child’s school?
Should a military mom with her husband deployed have to dip into sick leave at work to make sure her kids have the parental support they need?
Should someone with aging parents who require extra care have no option allowing them to devote more time and attention to their parents when they need it most?
The workplace has changed over the years, and so has the worker. We have different demands on our time, so it only makes sense that our laws governing the workplace catch up to the realities of today’s families.
That’s why I introduced the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013. It allows employers to offer their employees the choice of paid time off, or comp time, in lieu of cash wages for overtime. A working mom or dad could use the “time and a half” overtime he or she earned as actual paid “time and a half” off work instead of cash, if that’s what they’d rather have.
Under this bill, no worker could ever be forced to take paid time off, just like no business owner would be forced to offer it. This bill does not change the 40-hour work week or how overtime pay is calculated. The same protections that have been a part of labor law for decades remain. But, for some workers and businesses, comp time could be a valuable option to include in a benefits package.
A more flexible workplace isn’t a new concept. In fact, many employees in the public sector enjoy this benefit today. That’s because in 1985 Congress passed a law allowing public sector employers – local or state governments, or even federal agencies – to offer their employees the option of comp time.
So, why should the rules be different for employees in the private sector? Why should government workers have more freedom in the workplace than everybody else? And why is the federal government restricting businesses from offering certain benefits that government agencies are free to offer?
Denying private businesses and workers a benefit the government itself enjoys is hypocritical. It is also unfair. For some workers, extra paid time off is actually more valuable than money. And, if that’s the case, why should Washington stand in the way?
We heard from one such worker recently during a subcommittee hearing on this bill: Karen DeLoach, a bookkeeper at a Montgomery, Ala. accounting firm. Like most in her line of work, Karen puts in many hours during the busy season and, therefore, builds up a lot of overtime. Karen recently approached her boss to request swapping her earned overtime pay for comp time so she could go on her church’s mission trip to Nicaragua without interrupting her regular paycheck.
Montgomery is the state capital, and Karen had heard her state employee friends talk about how they swapped overtime pay for comp time in their jobs. She never imagined a similar arrangement at a private business would be against the law. But, that’s what her boss informed her. To his credit, Karen’s boss was willing to offer the flexibility of comp time, but he wasn’t going to break the law.
Karen’s story isn’t unique. Think about the parents of young children; those caring for elderly parents; military families with one of the parents about to deploy. They need more time to be able to take care of personal responsibilities. But, unless they work in the public sector, building up and taking advantage of comp time isn’t an option.
The Working Families Flexibility Act would finally offer working Americans in the private sector what their peers in the public sector already enjoy – more freedom and more control over their time. To be clear, this bill doesn’t add more government regulation in the workplace - we have enough red tape as it is. This bill aims to get Washington out of the way and give employees and employers the freedom to choose what works best for them.
American author and statesman Edward Everett Hale wrote, “I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
There are big issues facing this country. We have more than $16 trillion in national debt. We have a federal spending addiction. Though we’ve seen some improvement, the economy is still largely stuck in the mud, and businesses are being choked by bureaucratic red tape.
The Working Families Flexibility Act won’t solve the debt crisis, or fix Obamacare or simplify the tax code. I’m proud of our efforts to tackle these big problems in Congress, yet I realize those efforts could be long and drawn out, maybe over a matter of years.
But the fact that we can’t solve the big, overarching problems overnight shouldn’t stop us from doing what we can right now to help make life a little easier for working moms and dads. The Working Families Flexibility Act does that by helping Americans better balance the demands of family and work.

Rep. Jim Patterson Makes Misleading Statements in Editorial

Details: 24 Apr 2013; Published Date

by House Minority Leader Craig Ford
I was amazed to read a recent editorial from Rep. Jim Patterson, R-Merdianville, in which he blasted Democrats in the Alabama legislature for having the nerve to propose a 5 percent pay increase for educators.

Throughout his editorial, Rep. Patterson makes several statements that are either misleading or out-right false.

At one point, Rep. Patterson tried to claim that Democrats were responsible for the $437 million debt owed to the Alabama Trust Fund. Rep. Patterson claimed that Democrats incurred this debt in 2009.

That $437 million debt was incurred last September when Republicans asked voters to approve a constitutional amendment to borrow the $437 million to avoid the collapse of Alabama’s Medicaid program.

Furthermore, I and many other Democratic leaders in the House opposed this amendment because we wanted a more fiscally responsible solution to funding Medicaid.

Now Rep. Patterson is trying to rewrite history. But this isn’t the first time.

When I proposed the 5 percent pay increase for educators, Rep. Patterson alleged that Democrats had never paid for previous pay increases for educators when Democrats controlled the legislature. This is yet another false statement from Rep. Patterson.

Alabama’s constitution includes a “balanced budget amendment” that prohibits the legislature from passing a budget that isn’t balanced. The state budgets are written based on revenue projections. There may have been times when the revenue collected was not as high as the projection, but every pay raise Democrats have offered was paid for in the budgets we passed.

So while Rep. Patterson is certainly entitled to his own opinion, he is not entitled to his own facts. And before he writes more editorials, he should check to make sure what he says is accurate.

Rep. Patterson also went on to praise himself and the Republicans in the Alabama legislature for the two percent pay increase they gave educators and the liability insurance that he called an “added bonus.”

First, let’s be clear that the two percent pay increase was not a pay raise. It was a pay reinstatement. For the past two years, Republicans have taken 2.5 percent out of educators, retirees, and state employees paychecks. This two percent pay increase does not even give educators back all of what the Republicans took from them, let alone make a dent in the rising cost of living. And as Rep. Patterson pointed out, retirees didn’t even get the two percent.

Secondly, teachers didn’t need the $5 million liability insurance. They already get liability coverage through their local boards of education as well as the Alabama Education Association. And many teachers I have talked to have said they would rather that $5 million - and even the 2 percent pay increase - have been used to support the Alabama Reading Initiative, the Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative, or another successful program.

The only thing more shocking than Rep. Patterson’s false and misleading statements in his editorial is the hypocrisy in what he wrote.

Rep. Patterson made some big claims about fiscal responsibility and how his parents taught him “to exercise self-discipline and to live within my means.”

But one of the first votes Rep. Patterson cast when he came to Montgomery was to end the Deferred Retirement Options Plan (a.k.a. the DROP program), which was designed to keep experienced educators in the classroom. He voted to end this program after his wife made $138,440 from the program. Is this the self-discipline Rep. Patterson was referring to?

Rep. Patterson did make one claim, however, that I do agree with. Rep. Patterson wrote that, “Republicans have truly changed the way business is conducted in the State House.”

That is a true statement. In February, Republicans used back-room deals and bait-and-switch tactics to ram through the so-called Alabama Accountability Act that will divert millions of dollars out of our public schools ($50 million this year alone!) and use that money to pay for vouchers (most of which will be going to people who are already sending their children to private schools).

Republicans switched the original school reform bill for the so-called Accountability Act at the last minute and rammed it through the legislature after only one hour of discussion and with no fiscal estimate to determine how much it would costs.

That is certainly not the way Democrats in the Alabama legislature conducted business when we were in leadership.

I am disappointed that Rep. Patterson has chosen to make false statements and attempted to rewrite history. We should be having a serious conversation about the different visions Democrats and Republicans have for education reform. But we can’t have that conversation if Rep. Patterson and Republicans in the Alabama legislature can’t be honest with the taxpayers.
Rep. Craig Ford is a Democrat from Gadsden and the Minority Leader in the Alabama House of Representatives.

The Accountability Act Cannot Be Fixed Repeal is the Only Solution

Details: 09 Apr 2013; Published Date

by House Minority Leader Craig Ford

When Gov. Bentley signed the Alabama Accountability Act into law, he acknowledged that there were, in his words, “Some concerns [that] have been raised regarding the impact of this legislation.” The governor also said he believed those concerns could be fixed through more rules and regulation.

At the same time, Republicans in the state legislature are saying that they hope to fix the Accountability Act with new legislation to address the concerns that have been raised.

Let’s be clear: the Accountability Act cannot be fixed.

No matter how many rules or regulations the governor creates, and no matter how many more bills the legislature passes, the Accountability Act will still redirect millions of dollars out of public schools and undermine our entire public education system.

The Republican leadership has tried to sell this new law as a program to allow students “school choice.” But the chairman of the education budget committee has estimated that only 10 percent of students will actually transfer out of failing schools.

If he is right, then how does this bill help the 90 percent of students who cannot leave a struggling school? If he is wrong and more students decide to transfer, then he has drastically underfunded the education budget and our schools will go into proration.

And that is just the beginning of what is wrong with this terrible bill.

No matter how many rules and regulations the governor creates, and no matter how many more bills the legislature may pass, this new law will still redirect millions of dollars out of our schools and abandon our public education system.

That is why the Accountability Act is a broken piece of legislation that cannot be fixed or made better. The only solution is to repeal this terrible law and go back to the original education reform proposal that we were debating before the bait-and-switch took place.

It is time for a “do-over” – not just because this is a terrible law, but also because of the deceitful and unethical way this legislation became law.

And that is why Democrats in the Alabama legislature have introduced a bill that would repeal the Alabama Accountability Act and go back to the original school flexibility proposal that was approved by educators, the Alabama Association of School Boards, the School Superintendents of Alabama, the state school superintendent, and was passed unanimously out of the state senate.

By going back to the original education reform proposal, we can accomplish two things. First, we can restore the integrity of the legislative process and of our state government. Secondly, we can erase this terrible bill and have an honest and open discussion about responsible education reform.

When Democrats announced this plan, some Republican leaders said we were “defending the broken status quo.” That’s an odd thing to say, considering what we are proposing to do is go back to the Republicans’ original education reform proposal and have the honest debate we were supposed to have on that plan.

Every child in Alabama deserves to receive a quality education. Giving our children a quality education doesn’t just increase their own economic opportunities, it helps our entire economy grow. When we talk about job creation and recruiting business and industry to Alabama, one of the first things prospective employers look at is the local school system. They want to know that there are trained and educated workers to fill the jobs they will bring.

But how can we provide our children with a quality education if we are undermining the integrity of our schools and cutting millions of dollars from the education budget?

If we are going to be serious about providing a quality public education to all of our children, then we need to look at responsible education reform and giving educators and school administrators the freedom they need to be innovative. What we can’t afford to do is take even more money and resources away from our schools and expect these schools to magically start performing better.

The Republicans cannot fix the Accountability Act. But we can repeal it and go back to the reform proposal that educators and legislators in both parties supported. That is the reasonable and responsible thing to do.

Representative Craig Ford is a Democrat from Gadsden. He has served in the Alabama House of Representatives since 2000. In 2010, Representative Ford was elected House Minority Leader by the House Democratic Caucus. He was re-elected Minority Leader in 2012.

Why I Cannot Support the Common Core Standards

Details: 23 Apr 2013; Published Date

By Diane Ravitch
I have thought long and hard about the Common Core standards.
I have decided that I cannot support them.
In this post, I will explain why.
I have long advocated for voluntary national standards, believing that it would be helpful to states and districts to have general guidelines about what students should know and be able to do as they progress through school.
Such standards, I believe, should be voluntary, not imposed by the federal government; before implemented widely, they should be thoroughly tested to see how they work in real classrooms; and they should be free of any mandates that tell teachers how to teach because there are many ways to be a good teacher, not just one. I envision standards not as a demand for compliance by teachers, but as an aspiration defining what states and districts are expected to do. They should serve as a promise that schools will provide all students the opportunity and resources to learn reading and mathematics, the sciences, the arts, history, literature, civics, geography, and physical education, taught by well-qualified teachers, in schools led by experienced and competent educators.
For the past two years, I have steadfastly insisted that I was neither for nor against the Common Core standards. I was agnostic. I wanted to see how they worked in practice. I wanted to know, based on evidence, whether or not they improve education and whether they reduce or increase the achievement gaps among different racial and ethnic groups.
After much deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that I can’t wait five or ten years to find out whether test scores go up or down, whether or not schools improve, and whether the kids now far behind are worse off than they are today.
I have come to the conclusion that the Common Core standards effort is fundamentally flawed by the process with which they have been foisted upon the nation.
The Common Core standards have been adopted in 46 states and the District of Columbia without any field test. They are being imposed on the children of this nation despite the fact that no one has any idea how they will affect students, teachers, or schools. We are a nation of guinea pigs, almost all trying an unknown new program at the same time.
Maybe the standards will be great. Maybe they will be a disaster. Maybe they will improve achievement. Maybe they will widen the achievement gaps between haves and have-nots. Maybe they will cause the children who now struggle to give up altogether. Would the Federal Drug Administration approve the use of a drug with no trials, no concern for possible harm or unintended consequences?
President Obama and Secretary Duncan often say that the Common Core standards were developed by the states and voluntarily adopted by them. This is not true.
They were developed by an organization called Achieve and the National Governors Association, both of which were generously funded by the Gates Foundation. There was minimal public engagement in the development of the Common Core. Their creation was neither grassroots nor did it emanate from the states.
In fact, it was well understood by states that they would not be eligible for Race to the Top funding ($4.35 billion) unless they adopted the Common Core standards. Federal law prohibits the U.S. Department of Education from prescribing any curriculum, but in this case the Department figured out a clever way to evade the letter of the law. Forty-six states and the District of Columbia signed on, not because the Common Core standards were better than their own, but because they wanted a share of the federal cash. In some cases, the Common Core standards really were better than the state standards, but in Massachusetts, for example, the state standards were superior and well tested but were ditched anyway and replaced with the Common Core. The former Texas State Commissioner of Education, Robert Scott, has stated for the record that he was urged to adopt the Common Core standards before they were written.
The flap over fiction vs. informational text further undermined my confidence in the standards. There is no reason for national standards to tell teachers what percentage of their time should be devoted to literature or information. Both can develop the ability to think critically. The claim that the writers of the standards picked their arbitrary ratios because NAEP has similar ratios makes no sense. NAEP gives specifications to test-developers, not to classroom teachers.
I must say too that it was offensive when Joel Klein and Condoleeza Rice issued a report declaring that our nation’s public schools were so terrible that they were a “very grave threat to our national security.” Their antidote to this allegedly desperate situation: the untried Common Core standards plus charters and vouchers.
Another reason I cannot support the Common Core standards is that I am worried that they will cause a precipitous decline in test scores, based on arbitrary cut scores, and this will have a disparate impact on students who are English language learners, students with disabilities, and students who are poor and low-performing. A principal in the Mid-West told me that his school piloted the Common Core assessments and the failure rate rocketed upwards, especially among the students with the highest needs. He said the exams looked like AP exams and were beyond the reach of many students.
When Kentucky piloted the Common Core, proficiency rates dropped by 30 percent. The Chancellor of the New York Board of Regents has already warned that the state should expect a sharp drop in test scores.
What is the purpose of raising the bar so high that many more students fail?
Rick Hess opined that reformers were confident that the Common Core would cause so much dissatisfaction among suburban parents that they would flee their public schools and embrace the reformers’ ideas (charters and vouchers). Rick was appropriately doubtful that suburban parents could be frightened so easily.
Jeb Bush, at a conference of business leaders, confidently predicted that the high failure rates sure to be caused by Common Core would bring about “a rude awakening.” Why so much glee at the prospect of higher failure rates?.
I recently asked a friend who is a strong supporter of the standards why he was so confident that the standards would succeed, absent any real-world validation. His answer: “People I trust say so.” That’s not good enough for me.
Now that David Coleman, the architect of the Common Core standards, has become president of the College Board, we can expect that the SAT will be aligned to the standards. No one will escape their reach, whether they attend public or private school.
Is there not something unseemly about placing the fate and the future of American education in the hands of one man?
I hope for the sake of the nation that the Common Core standards are great and wonderful. I wish they were voluntary, not mandatory. I wish we knew more about how they will affect our most vulnerable students.
But since I do not know the answer to any of the questions that trouble me, I cannot support the Common Core standards.
I will continue to watch and listen. While I cannot support the Common Core standards, I will remain open to new evidence. If the standards help kids, I will say so. If they hurt them, I will say so. I will listen to their advocates and to their critics.
I will encourage my allies to think critically about the standards, to pay attention to how they affect students, and to insist, at least, that they do no harm.

Diane Ravitch is a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Previously, she was a U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education.

Make Our Children’s Safety a Priority

Details: 02 Apr 2013; Published Date

By House Minority Leader, Representative Craig Ford

The Bible says in Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” I believe in the truth of that scripture, and over the next couple of months we will see where our state’s leadership is putting their hearts.

As the legislature returns for the second half of the legislative session, one of its top priorities will be to finish the state’s budgets. There are several critical programs that our state needs to fund, such as Medicaid, public schools, and the courts. But one department that should be a top priority for us is the Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention.

While there are several state funded and charitable programs that help families after neglect or abuse has occurred, the Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention is Alabama’s ONLY agency that tries to address the problem before it occurs.

The Department, created in 1983, established the Children’s Trust Fund to “provide annual funding of community based prevention programs throughout the state as well as create a self-sustaining pool of funds to provide for funding these programs in the future.”

This year, the Children’s Trust Fund is funding approximately 86 community-based child abuse prevention programs across the state. These programs include traditional anti-abuse programs targeting children in K-12, as well as fatherhood programs, mentoring programs for new moms, and many other valuable programs.

But all of these programs are at risk because of the budget that was passed out of the state senate.

Fortunately, it is not too late to save these critical programs. The budget can be changed when the state House of Representatives takes it up in the coming weeks, and I hope that my colleagues in the House will make it our first priority to restore funding for the Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention as well as the Department of Children’s Affairs, which lost all funding in the senate version of the budget.

Child abuse and neglect is a very real problem in Alabama, and we cannot afford to ignore it. In 2010 alone, 9,586 children were victims of abuse or neglect in Alabama. That’s about 8.5 out of every 1,000 children in Alabama. Of these children, 37.6% were neglected, 50.0% were physically abused, and 22.5% were sexually abused.

The problem hasn’t gotten much better in recent years. According to the Child Welfare League of America, Alabama had 20,159 total referrals for child abuse and neglect since 2010. Of those, 19,900 reports were referred for investigation.
We cannot turn our backs on these children! Our children’s safety, whether it is at school or at home, has to be our number one priority. If we cannot agree on that, then what in the world are we doing in Montgomery?

I encourage everyone who reads this to contact their local representatives and senators and ask them to support the Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention and the Department of Children’s Affairs. If we do not restore this funding, then we, too, are guilty of negligence. Making our children safer should be the legislature’s number one priority.

Education Budget a Slap in the Face

Details: 17 Apr 2013; Published Date

by House Minority Leader Craig Ford

It has been a rough year for public education in Alabama. In fact, for the past three years, the Republicans in the Alabama legislature have been waging a war on public education.

And because of the education budget that passed the state House of Representatives last week, next year isn’t looking much better.

Particularly, there are two proposals included in this budget that are nothing more than a slap in the face to educators, state employees, and the taxpayers.

The first of these is a two percent pay increase for some educators.

Now a two percent pay increase may sound like a good deal, but there are problems with this proposal. First, this pay increase was not given to retirees (who have not had a cost-of-living pay increase since 2006) or those who work in higher education and post-secondary education.

Secondly, while some are calling this pay increase a pay raise, it actually is not a pay raise. This is a partial pay reinstatement. Over the past three year, the legislature has cut all educators pay – including retirees and higher education employees – by 2.5 percent. So all this budget is really doing is giving educators back some – but not all – of what was taken from educators.

Furthermore, a two percent pay increase is a slap in the face to educators because the cost of living has increased 7.5 percent since their last pay increase. So we should be giving educators a 10 percent pay increase in order to keep up with the rising costs of expenses.

This pay reinstatement is also a slap in the face to state employees. In the past, every time the legislature gave educators a pay raise, we also gave an equal pay raise to state employees. But this year, state employees will get nothing. Their pay was also cut when the Republicans cut educators pay. And state employees have also seen their cost of living go up.

Do state employees, those in higher education, and retirees not deserve a pay increase as well? If we can find $50 million for vouchers to send kids to private school, can we not find the money to at least give an equal pay increase for all educators, retirees, and state employees?

The second proposal that is a slap in the face to educators and taxpayers is an unnecessary line-item expenditure for liability insurance for educators.

This new expenditure will cost the state $5 million a year to provide insurance that teachers and support personnel are already getting through their local school boards. They also get liability coverage if they are members of AEA or the Alabama Teachers Federation through those organizations.

So why is the state spending $5 million dollars to provide a third source of liability coverage?

And what if the employee is in arbitration with the state over wrongful termination? Isn’t that a conflict of interest if the employees’ representatives are paid by the state?

A better use of that $5 million would be to buy new textbooks or to pay for class fieldtrips and other learning tools. Spending this money on liability coverage is a slap in the face to the taxpayers who are paying for it and to the educators who could be undermined by it if they find themselves in arbitration against the state.

The education budget that passed the state House of Representatives is a slap in the face to Alabama’s taxpayers, educators, state employees, and retirees. While a two percent pay increase is better than nothing (and that is why I voted for it despite its flaws), it does not even replace the 2.5% that Republicans took from educators and state employees over the past three years. Furthermore, this pay increase is not being given to retirees or those who work in higher education. And the liability insurance program is an unnecessary diversion of $5 million tax dollars that could be put to better use in the classroom.

Alabama’s educators and taxpayers deserve better than what they are getting from their elected representatives in Montgomery. I only hope the state senate will fix these problems and do what is right before it is too late.

Representative Craig Ford is a Democrat from Gadsden. He has served in the Alabama House of Representatives since 2000. In 2010, Representative Ford was elected House Minority Leader by the House Democratic Caucus. He was re-elected Minority Leader in 2012.

Senator Dial: Past Time to Remove Sales Tax on Food

Details: 02 Apr 2013; Published Date

By Senator Gerald Dial

For years, there have been numerous attempts to remove the STATE Sales Tax on Food. None of these efforts have been adopted by the Legislature. While we all agree that this is the most regressive tax we have, we have not been able to agree on how to recover the over $350,000,000 of revenue that will be lost from the Educational Trust Fund each year.

Most proposed plans in the past have pitted one element of our society against another, creating class warfare. We feel this is the major reason we have not joined our sister states of Florida, Georgia, and others in removing this regressive tax. Only Alabama and Mississippi continue to collect this regressive tax.

Taxing items of necessity is wrong. We removed the tax on prescription drugs in Alabama in the late 70’s. But it is now past time to remove the state sales tax on food as defined by the U.S. Government.

The bill, Senate Bill 279, would allow the removal of the state sales tax on food over a four year period. It will increase the general sales tax on all non-big box items by one fourth cent a year for four years to offset the $350,000,000 lost from the EFT. This will not pit one element of society against another. It will insure that the ETF will not lose funds (especially in this critical time) and allow us to join other states with no state sales tax on food.


Year     Food Tax Decrease                     Proposed Tax Structure
2013---2013 .04 - .01 = .03 FOOD TAX     .04     + .025 = .425 OTHER
2014---2014 .03 - .01 = .02 FOOD TAX     .0425 +.025 = .450 OTHER
2015---2015 .02 - .01 = .01 FOOD TAX     .0450 + .025 = .475 OTHER
2016---2016 .01 - .01 = .00 FOOD TAX     .0475 + .025 = 5.0 OTHER

Gerald Dial, a Republican from Lineville, represents District 13 in the Alabama Senate. He is Chairman of the Local Legislation No. 1 Committee, Vice Chairman of the Education Budget Committee, and also serves on the Children, Youth Affairs and Human Resources Committee, Health Committee, Rules Committee and Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.