Court Opinion

ID: 9678149
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:12:59.654567+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:02.263074
License: Public Domain

FOSHEIM, Chief Justice.
This is an appeal by the Rapid City Education Association (Association) from an or*563der of the circuit court affirming a decision of the South Dakota Department of Labor that held that certain items were not negotiable under SDCL 3-18-3. We reverse and remand.
Association is the duly recognized bargaining representative of the teachers in the Rapid City school system. On January 20, 1982, Association submitted to Rapid City Area School District No. 51-4 (District) proposed amendments to the 1980-82 negotiated agreement between the parties. Among these amendments were the following items that Association desired to submit to negotiation:
E. If, at either the senior high school or junior high school, an employees (sic) assignment exceeds five (5) fifty-five (55) minute periods of classroom instruction, the employee’s annual compensation shall be increased by twenty (20%) percent, for each fifty-five (55) minute period in excess of five (5).
F. If, at either the senior high school or junior high school, an employee is assigned more than two (2) subject matter areas, the employees (sic) annual compensation will be increased by ten (10%) percent for each additional subject matter.
G. If, at either the senior high school or junior high school, an employee is assigned more than three (3) preparations, the employees (sic) annual compensation will be increased by ten (10%) percent for each preparation above three (3).
H. If the amount of student contact time exceeds two hundred seventy five (sic) (275) minutes per day for elementary teachers or two hundred sixty (260) minutes per day for special services teachers and CODY, the employees (sic) annual compensation will be increased by one percent (1%) for each fifteen (15) minutes, or major fraction times the number of days per week the established student contact time is exceeded.
I. The weighted student contacts for any employee in grades kindergarten through three (3) will be between seventeen (17) to twenty-two (22). The weighted student contacts for any employee in grades four (4) through twelve (12) will be between twenty-two (22) and twenty-seven (27). If these ranges are exceeded for any employee, the employees (sic) annual compensation will be increased by five (5%) percent for each weighted student contact in excess of twenty-two (22) for grades kindergarten through three (3) and twenty-seven (27) for grades four (4) through twelve (12).
1) Each students (sic) abilities will be weighted for determining student contacts on the following scale:
Normal functioning 1.0
Gifted 1.5
Slow learners 1.75
Bilingual 1.75
Chronic Absentee 1.5
Reading Disability 2.0
Hearing Disability 2.0
Physical Disability 2.0
Disciplinary Problems 2.0
Significantly limited intellectual capacity 2.0
Non English speaking 2.5
Emotionally Disturbed 2.5
Perceptual and communication disorder 2.5
Hyperactive 2.5
Lab classes 2.0
2) Student contact ranges shall not apply to band, chorus, Orchestra, Title I, CODY, Itinerate Special Services, Library, Guidance, and Nurses.
The deputy director of the Department of Labor found that these amendments were not proposals or materials which materially affect working conditions, wages or hours of employment and concluded that they dealt with matters that would significantly interfere with the exercise of District’s inherent management prerogatives. Relying upon our decision in Aberdeen Education Ass’n v. Aberdeen Bd. of Education, Aberdeen Ind. School Dist., 88 S.D. 127, 215 N.W.2d 837 (1974), the circuit court affirmed the Department’s decision.
SDCL 3-18-3 provides in part:
Representatives designated or selected for the purpose of formal representation by the majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for such purposes shall *564be the exclusive representatives of all employees in such unit for the purpose of representation in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment^]
In Aberdeen Education Ass’n, supra, we held that “the term ‘other conditions of employment’ as used in SDCL 3-18-3 means conditions of employment which materially affect rates of pay, wages, hours of employment and working conditions[.]” 88 S.D. at 133, 215 N.W.2d at 841. We held that as so defined, SDCL 3-18-3 did not require that a school board negotiate with respect to elementary conferences, teachers’ aides, elementary planning, class size, audio-visual expansion, budget allowances, school-wide guidance and counseling program, and mandatory retirement of administrators.
Upon further reflection, we conclude that our holding in Aberdeen Education Ass’n was too restrictive and should be reconsidered.
We conclude that the analysis applied by the Supreme Court of New Jersey in In re Local 195, IFPTE, AFL-CIO v. State, 88 N.J. 393, 443 A.2d 187 (1982), represents a thoughtful, workable response to the competing interests of employees and employers in the public sector. As the New Jersey Supreme Court pointed out, the state is different from a private employer inasmuch as it has the unique responsibility to make and implement public policy. Accordingly, the scope of negotiations in the public sector is more limited than in the private sector. Id. 443 A.2d at 191. The court went on to define the role of the judiciary in cases involving the scope of negotiations:
The role of the courts in a scope of negotiations case is to determine, in light of the competing interests of the State and its employees, whether an issue is appropriately decided by the political process or by collective negotiations. In making this sensitive determination, the mere invocation of abstract categories like “terms and conditions of employment” and “managerial prerogatives” is not helpful. To determine whether a subject is negotiable, the Court must balance the competing interests by considering the extent to which collective negotiations will impair the determination of governmental policy.”
88 N.J. at 402, 443 A.2d at 191 (footnote omitted).
Under the New Jersey analysis, a three-part test is employed in scope of negotiations determinations:
First, a subject is negotiable only if it “intimately and directly affect[s] the work and welfare of public employees....”

Second, an item is not negotiable if it has been preempted by statute or regulation ....
Third, a topic that affects the work and welfare of public employees is negotiable only if it is a matter “on which negotiated agreement would not significantly interfere with the exercise of inherent management prerogatives pertaining to the determination of governmental policy.
88 N.J. at 403, 443 A.2d at 191-92 (emphasis in original).
We conclude that the New Jersey three-part test provides a more meaningful standard by which to determine claims of negotiability than does the rather concluso-ry, truncated test that we adopted in Aberdeen Education Ass’n, supra, and we therefore adopt it as our own. For other cases adopting a more expansive view of what educational policies are negotiable, see, e.g., Foley Ed. Ass’n v. Independent School Dist. No. 51, 353 N.W.2d 917 (Minn. 1984); and City of Beloit, Etc. v. Wis. Employment, Etc., 73 Wis.2d 43, 242 N.W.2d 231 (1976). To the extent that our holding in Aberdeen Education Ass’n is inconsistent with the New Jersey test, that case is overruled.
When measured against the three-part test, Association's proposals E through H are proper subjects of negotiations under SDCL 3-18-3 in that the matters sought to be negotiated relate to sub*565jects which fall within the categories of rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, and other conditions of employment. In a word, the items contained within categories E through H intimately and directly affect the work and welfare of Association’s members. We do not believe that any of those items have been preempted by statute or regulation. Finally, the matters sought to be negotiated would not significantly interfere with the exercise of inherent management prerogatives pertaining to the determination of school policy. True, the items sought to be negotiated will have an impact upon the District’s budget, but no more so than the items that are presently negotiable under the Aberdeen Education Ass’n test of negotiability.
With respect to item I, however, we conclude that the weighted student contacts proposed by Association significantly impinges upon the exercise of District’s inherent management prerogatives concerning the determination of school policy inasmuch as they relate to the sensitive subject of classifying students according to their abilities and disabilities, which we believe is a matter entrusted solely to the discretion of a school board acting through its appointed administrative officials.
The order appealed from is reversed and the case is remanded to the circuit court with directions to direct the Department of Labor to enter an appropriate order not inconsistent with the views set forth in this opinion.
MORGAN, J., and WUEST, Circuit Judge, acting as a Supreme Court Justice, concur.
HENDERSON, J., concurs specially.
HERTZ, Circuit Judge, acting as a Supreme Court Justice, not participating.