JEFFERSON —
With a big sigh of relief and the ability to better plan the district’s five year financial forecast, the Jefferson Area Local Schools Board of Education accepted a contract with the Jefferson Area Teacher’s Association (JATA), Superintendent Doug Hladek said.
The one-year agreement was made with concessions by the teachers, including no increases to the base teacher’s salary; a freeze on salary steps, eliminating the automatic salary increase for years of experience; and doubling each teacher’s contribution to health care insurance premiums from 5 percent to 10 percent.
“The way it stands, no bargaining unit member will receive an experience credit step for the 2012-13 school year,” Hladek said. “That is the big concession. One of the things we have been criticized for is our ‘Cadillac’ health care plans and that our employees don’t contribute, so that is an increase of the total premium and it is a savings to the district.”
Hladek said the concessions were made with “an acute understanding of the district’s financial situation.”
The district laid off 21 teachers and 17 classified employees in order to trim $1.5 million from the yearly budget, Hladek said, and a large-scale failure at the polls in August had more programs and services on the chopping block.
“The teachers are aware of our community’s financial stress,” he said. “We made $1.5 million in cuts that cut 21 teachers from district and cut programs for the students. For the teachers to make the concessions they did was helpful in next school years’ budget where we project another $1 million in cuts.”
Hladek said there were no bones about it — a lack of concessions would have meant more programs and personnel cuts.
But both sides walked away with a sense of fairness in the contract, he said.
“The negotiations were very amicable and I think both sides came into it knowing the seriousness of the negotiations and the lack of finances the district has and the current public sentiment towards education,” he said. “I think we had a good healthy negotiation and I commend the teachers for their cooperation for accepting the concessions.”
Board of Education Vice President Pat Inman, who served as a member of the negotiating team, agreed.
“I would like to extend my congratulations to the teams on both sides who worked on this. They heard what the community was saying and understood the financial status of the district,” she said.
JATA president Sara Kreisher and chief negotiator Terry Moody said the teachers and board bargained a contract that lessens the financial burdens of the district.
“The teachers willingly took significant concessions in order to do our part in this time of financial crisis,” Kreisher said. “We hope our community recognizes that our main emphasis is on educating our students, as they are the ones most adversely affected by program cuts, losing teachers, and larger class sizes.”
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