D.C. officials making progress in closing funding gap for teachers contract

District officials have made "significant progress" in closing a funding gap in the proposed new teachers contract and hope to have a plan that will pass muster with the city's chief financial officer Friday, his spokesman said Thursday.

David Umansky, spokesman for Natwar M. Gandhi, said school officials have promised to provide "new numbers" in time for Gandhi to present his analysis to the D.C. Council on Friday morning. Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is scheduled to testify after Gandhi.

"There has been significant progress in closing the funding gap in the contract and the DCPS spending pressures," Umansky said.

The Fenty administration was sent scrambling for more money after Gandhi rejected a plan to use about $21 million in private foundation money to pay teacher salaries promised in the proposed labor contract. The money is part of $64.5 million in grants that four nonprofit foundations pledged to support Rhee's programs.

But the organizations said in letters to the District that they reserve the right to withdraw the funding if there is a change in the school system leadership or if student test scores do not reach certain milestones.

Gandhi told city officials that money for teacher salaries must come "without condition," meaning it must be either local or federal dollars.

Details of the solution that school officials and the District are crafting remained unclear late Thursday. But a key figure in coordinating the foundation funding revealed that if the union and the council ratify the contract, the $21 million in private donations earmarked for teacher pay would be sent to the District during the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

That means the city would have to provide interim public financing for just a few months before the foundation money would be in hand. That public money could then be reprogrammed by the council for other uses.

Cate Swinburn, president and executive director of the D.C. Public Education Fund, a nonprofit set up to handle private money for the schools, also said in a letter to The Washington Post that the Sept. 14 mayoral primary "will occur after the private funds have been received by the District." So even if Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) is defeated and Rhee leaves as chancellor, the teachers will have their money.

The mayor and chancellor also must replace $34 million that Gandhi wiped from their budget on April 15 when he ruled that a "surplus" Rhee had identified for the D.C. Council did not exist. Although the budget indicated that expenditures for teacher salaries were running under anticipated levels, Gandhi told Rhee that the gain was offset by about $30 million in overspending on unspecified overtime and central office operations.

The uncertainty surrounding the new contract has created frustration among teachers, who have not received a raise in nearly three years. With the retroactive pay raises provided in the proposed pact, many instructors would receive large lump-sum payments.

"There are many, many, many of us DCPS teachers that love what the tentative agreement is saying! We are looking forward to the contract passing," Jennifer Miller, a teacher at Wheatley Education Campus in Northeast, said in an e-mail. "We are voting YES."

Turmoil generated by the financial uncertainties has spilled into other parts of the city's education community. The election for leadership of the Washington Teachers' Union, usually held in May, has yet to be scheduled. General Vice President Nathan Saunders, who is challenging union President George Parker, accuses Parker and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten of delaying the vote until teachers have a chance to approve the deal, which calls for a 20 percent salary increase through 2012.