Navigating the RIFt: Things to Consider When Budgets Break

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Daniel Bellerive of Sedor, Wendlandt, Evans & Filippi, LLC

Part 10 of the series Back to Basics

Ben Franklin famously said that “nothing is certain but death and taxes,” and this is certainly true of Alaska school funding. Uncertainty about levels of funding and education budgets complicates school districts’ ability to plan for upcoming school years. School boards have many tools to address funding challenges. One of those tools is the Reduction in Force (“RIF”).

RIFs are one of the most difficult and sensitive actions that your district may face. They impact your dedicated staff, classroom environments, and the wider school community. Grounding a district’s decisions in facts and law is essential to protect the district from legal challenges.

At its core, a RIF is a termination of a tenured teacher’s employment due to reasons unrelated to their performance. Specifically, a RIF is a termination due to a decrease in school attendance in the district, or a decrease of the district’s basic need by three percent or more from the previous year. Terminations for cause and non-retention of non-tenured staff are not RIFs, and are subject to different processes and requirements.

AS 14.20.177 is the cornerstone statute for RIFs, and can be broken down into four key components: (1) permissible grounds for a RIF, (2) the mandatory RIF plan, (3) notice requirements, and (4) recall rights.

Alaska law gives only two reasons that a district can implement a RIF affecting tenured teachers. AS 14.20.177 permits a school district to implement a layoff plan only “if it is necessary for the district to reduce the number of tenured teachers because school attendance in the district has decreased; or the basic need of the school district determined under AS 14.17.410(b)(1) decreases by three percent or more from the previous year.” It isn’t enough that the district’s attendance or basic need has decreased—the necessity of the RIF needs to have been caused by one of those two conditions.

Before any RIF can occur, the school board must adopt a layoff plan. The plan needs to identify academic and other programs that the district will maintain in implementing its plan and must include procedures for layoff and recall of tenured teachers. Beyond what the statute requires, when a district’s layoff plan was challenged in court a Juneau Superior Court judge found that the layoff plan was invalid in part because it didn’t comply with constitutional due process requirements. (Haines Education Association v. Haines Borough School District, Case No. 1JU-03-00418CI) This decision required that the layoff plan must also be circulated to the district’s teachers and the public in order to provide an opportunity to comment on the plan. The decision also stated that the plan’s criteria must be applied fairly and consistently to legitimately eliminate teaching positions without targeting individual teachers. A district’s collective bargaining agreement may also impose additional requirements on layoffs, and districts should be aware of those requirements before a RIF is needed.

In addition to an opportunity to comment on the district’s RIF plan, affected teachers are entitled to proper and timely notice. AS 14.20.140 requires that tenured teachers be notified of the layoff in writing by May 15th, but a district’s collective bargaining agreement and board policies may require sooner notice. The terms of a collective bargaining agreement may specify different dates, but cannot conflict with AS 14.20.177.

When a RIF has occurred, affected tenured teachers have statutory recall rights. Teachers in layoff status are entitled to a hiring preference for vacant position for which they are qualified for three years after the RIF. A teacher in layoff status who is offered a position with this hiring preference may remain in a layoff status if they decline the offer due to a contractual obligation to provide professional services to another educational program.

Reductions in Force are just one tool available to districts to navigate difficult financial times, but they are a tool that requires significant advance planning to use appropriately. This brief commentary doesn’t capture every consideration that should precede a RIF, but there are things a district can do to be prepared if the need ever arises:

  • If your district is considering a RIF, make sure that you have a need that demonstrably aligns with one of the statutory grounds.
  • A district’s layoff plan is its blueprint—expect that a layoff plan will take time to develop and adopt.
  • Make sure that teacher evaluations are up to date, based on objective criteria, and applied consistently district-wide.
  • Maintain accurate, consistently calculated, and readily accessible seniority data.
  • Identify any requirements or modifications in your collective bargaining agreement regarding RIF procedures, notice, or recall.
  • Start the RIF process as soon as possible.

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