CCEA Loses Round 1

From the LVRJ: About 134 teacher positions were pulled off the chopping block today after an arbitrator sided with the Clark County School District over who will pay $10 million in increased teacher retirement costs.
The money represents an increase in payments that public employees must make to the state's retirement plan. The district had asked its teachers union to allow teachers to pay half of the 2.25 percent increase, the same agreement it made with its other employee unions. But teachers union officials refused, despite the district claiming it needed the $10 million in question to help balance its budget for 2011-12.
District officials claimed that without that concession, the only way to make up the money would be teacher layoffs. With teachers earning $75,000 on average, including benefits, the district would have to cut about 134 positions without the retirement payment concession. Since that matter couldn't be settled in negotiations, it went to an objective third party, an arbitrator, to make the decision.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/arbitrator-s-decision-to-side-with-district-saves-about-134-teacher-jobs-144702775.html
This is going to be a bad summer for the teachers union.  I believe they will also lose the arbitration in which the the District wants to freeze pay, including step pay for education and longevity.
The District has been taking the money out of out our paychecks, so it won't the teachers and the amount really was not that much- a few dollars.
But the District has been on a hiring frenzy and we really have not seen any classroom budgets cut, so the District crying poverty is also a myth.