The teachers, who have
experienced seven years of salary freezes, and the board had been negotiating
since earlier this year. The contract will go into effect Sept. 1. The current
one expires at the end of August. There about 240 members in the union. The
vote on the contract was unavailable.
Board Solicitor Stephen
Kalis said the contract is based on a new salary schedule that will take eight
years to be fully implemented.
In the new schedule,
steps will increase to 20 before being reduced to 13, he said.
"This will provide
for more equal salary distribution," Kalis said.
Steps are advancement on
the pay scale based on years of experience or service to the district. In the
salary schedule under the expiring contract, there are 16 steps.
Union President Beth
Yoder said the only big flaw in the new salary schedule is that some teachers
will see little to no increases, depending on where they are in the schedule.
Steps 16 and above will
see a minimal move in salary, where previously they saw a huge increase in
salary, officials said.
That money from the
higher steps will be distributed to lower steps.
The contract also says
that new employees can immediately start receiving tuition reimbursement for
career-related education.
Previously, there was a
one-year wait to receive reimbursement.
There will also be no
change in contribution from teacher salaries for medical insurance.
Board member Tom Hylton
was the only member to vote against the contract, mainly because of his worries
about funding in the district.
"Over the next
three years we're going to have to cut staff and we're going to have to be
creative," Hylton said. "And being creative is a lot more difficult
than spending taxpayer dollars."
Yoder said that overall,
the union was pleased with the negotiations.
"Our teachers
understand that we're not an extremely wealthy district and we went into
negotiations trying to get what's fair," she said.
One of the details Yoder
said they were happy with was the creation of the new salary schedule.
While there were no
salary increases, federation Vice President Mike DiDonato said the step
increases are a move in the right direction.
DiDonato said he was
also pleased to see a three-year contract because many districts are opting for
one-year contracts.
In other business, the
hiring of a new director of human resources was ratified by the school board.
Deena Cellini will
replace Stephen Rodriguez, who was named acting superintendent.
Cellini was hired as
director of human resources, effective Aug. 10, at a salary of $115,000.
Rodriguez made about
$130,000 before he was named acting superintendent.