PERB has released its annual report for fiscal year 2014-2015. (The report is available here.) Here is my annual summary of the statistics in the report:
Unfair Practice Charges
695 unfair practice charges (UPCs) were filed in fiscal year 2014-15. In fiscal year 2013-2014, there were 949 UPCs, but 173 of those were filed by the same individual on behalf of himself and/or other employees over agency fee issues. So if you subtract the 172 “duplicate” UPCs, there were 777 UPCs filed in fiscal year 2013-14. That means fiscal year 2014-15 saw a 10.6% decrease in UPCs compared to the year before.
The decrease in filings was seen in all the major acts with the exception of the Dills Act. The largest decrease was under HEERA, which saw a 31.7% decrease in UPCs (71 versus 104 in 2013-14). The MMBA saw a 14.2% decrease in UPCs (260 versus 303 in 2013-14). EERA saw a 6.2% decrease of UPCs (272 versus 290 in 2013-14). Going against this trend was the Dills Act which saw a 35.8% increase in UPCs (72 versus 53 in 2013-14).
Year: # of UPCs
2014-15: 695
2013-14: 949 (777 if duplicates are eliminated)
2012-13: 678
2011-12: 768
2010-11: 744
2009-10: 802
2008-09: 868
2007-08: 816
2006-07: 823
2005-06: 1012
2004-05: 1126
2003-04: 838
2002-03: 802
2001-02: 740
ALJ Proposed Decisions
In 2014-15, the ALJs at PERB issued 70 proposed decisions. This is compared to 76 proposed decisions in both 2012-13 and 2013-14. Because PERB added an 8th ALJ in May 2014, I had thought the number of proposed decisions in 2014-15 would increase. Fortunately, the decrease was relatively slight. Also good news is the fact that the 70 proposed decisions is greater than the 69 formal hearings that were conducted in 2014-15. This means the ALJs continue to make progress on the “backlog.”
[Note: The annual report this year again did not state the average number of days it took to issue a proposed decision, so I don’t have that number for the last two years]Year: # of Proposed Decisions (Average # of Days)
2014-15: 70 (Unknown)
2013-14: 76 (Unknown)
2012-13: 76 (128)
2011-12: 61 (102)
2010-11: 38 (122)
2009-10: 57 (86)
2008-09: 52 (94)
2007-08: 44 (94)
2006-07: 41 (85)
2005-06: 46 (100)
2004-05: 49 (63)
2003-04: 47 (53)
2002-03: 52 (53)
Board Decisions
For 2014-15, the Board itself issued 74 decisions and also considered 19 injunctive relief (IR) requests. The 74 decisions is a 14.9% decrease from the 87 decisions issued in 2013-14 while the 19 IR requests is a 24% decrease from the 25 IR requests in 2013-14. With respect to Board decisions, I hope that we will see a substantial increase next year. This is because for the first time in many years, the Board has a full five members. So with the additional Board member(s), presumably there will be some additional decisions issued.
As of today, the Board’s docket lists 51 items, including 42 proposed decisions on exceptions before the Board. When I did my review of the annual report last year, the Board’s docket had 59 cases on it. So historically, a docket of 51 items is pretty good. If the Board is issuing about 70-80 decisions a year, it should be able to clear its docket in less than a year. However, of the 42 proposed decisions on the docket, 19 are more than a year old. Five are more than two years old. This means that while the Board may doing a good job of getting many decisions out quickly, there are still many “meatier” decisions that have yet to be issued. Those are often the decisions that take the most time to write.
Year: # of Board Decisions/IR Requests/Combined Total
2014-15: 74/19/93
2013-14: 87/25/112
2012-13: 51/17/68
2011-12: 100/21/121
2010-11: 79/16/95
2009-10: 79/13/92
2008-09: 89/19/108
2007-08: 65/28/93
2006-07: 87/16/103
2005-06: 80/23/103
2004-05: 142/14/156
2003-04: 128/13/141
2002-03: 73/14/87
2001-02: 44/23/67
Factfinding Requests
In fiscal year 2014-15, there were 23 requests approved for factfinding under EERA and HEERA. There were 41 factfinding requests filed under the MMBA. Of these 41 requests, 34 were approved. The 34 approved requests under the MMBA represents a 35.8% decrease from the 53 approved requests in 2013-14.
Year: # of Requests
EERA/HEERA
2014-15: 23 (Approved)
2013-14: 26 (Approved)
2012-13: 34 (Approved)
2011-12: 29 (Requested)
MMBA
2014-15: 34 (Approved)
2013-14: 53 (Approved)
2012-13: 62 (Approved)
2011-12: 21 (Requested)
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