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With only one scheduled contract negotiation session remaining, representatives of the Lawrence school district and its teachers union have yet to discuss a key issue for both sides: teacher pay.

Part of the delay is uncertainty about what the district’s budget will look like for next school year, but more time may not bring answers. Even with a pending Kansas Supreme Court case regarding school finance, district administrators suggested that the union, Lawrence Education Association, come forward with a salary proposal anyway.

“What’s your plan?” David Cunningham, director of human resources and legal services, asked LEA representatives at a negotiations meeting Monday. “Because we have another meeting scheduled in two weeks and I guarantee you the court’s not going to make a decision in two weeks.”

In April, Gov. Sam Brownback signed a school funding bill that supporters hope will satisfy the Supreme Court, which has declared parts of the current funding system inequitable. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for next week, and some think certain provisions are likely to be struck down. A second component of the case — whether school funding is adequate — is still under review by the court. Regardless of those unknown outcomes, Cunningham said salary negotiations should begin.

“We may be sitting in our best position right now, and a month from now have less money than we think we do,” Cunningham said. “…My point is, I don’t know that we gain a lot by waiting.”

Union representatives agreed, and said that continuing to wait for word from the Supreme Court isn’t likely to yield results soon and they will plan to bring something to the negotiating table in two weeks.

“One way or another, I would assume by next time we’ll be able to have some kind of an answer for what we are doing with salary,” said David Reber, lead negotiator for the union.

At Monday’s meeting, union representatives did put forth several other proposals. One addition would recoup teachers for plan time lost because of school assemblies, and another would set limits to teachers’ workloads for parent-teacher conferences. At past meetings, the union proposed longer lunches at the elementary level and a better definition of teacher workdays.

As far as limits to the workday during parent-teacher conferences, Cunningham expressed concern that such limits could mean that teachers wouldn’t have time to hold conferences with all parents if budget cuts cause class sizes to increase in the future. But Reber said teachers shouldn’t continue “absorbing all of the results of what goes on in Topeka.”

“Doing it (the current) way will get the conferences done, but it’s at the expense of more work on the teacher, and we just don’t see it as a long-term solution,” he said. “If we never pass the pain onto the people that are voting people into office, they’re never going to understand there’s a problem.”

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the equity portion of the school finance case on May 10. The next meeting for teacher and district negotiators will be 5 p.m. May 16 at district offices, 110 McDonald Drive.