East Williston Teachers Ok pay freeze in 2011-12

Richard Tedesco

After several months of negotiations, the East Williston School Board has reached a settlement with the school district’s teachers association on a four-year contract that will hold teachers’ salaries to an average 1.1 percent increase over the duration of the deal.

Board president Mark Kamberg announced Monday night that the teachers agreed to accept a wage freeze in the first year of the contract, and a freeze on auxiliary salaries and stipends for the first two years of the contract. Teachers will continue to contribute 20 percent to the cost of their health insurance coverage.

“The goal of the district was to significantly reduce costs, and with this contract we have made a giant step forward in containing cost over the next four years,” Kamberg said in a statement he read at Monday night’s special budget meeting. “Our teachers union realized the district’s challenges and responded to our challenges in order to preserve the educational integrity of our programs.”

Kamberg said the board appreciated the union’s acceptance of a salary freeze for the 2011-12 school year along with pay freezes in incremental steps in the third and fourth years of the contract. Pay raises of 1.6 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively, will be delayed for the first six months in both years. The teachers will receive a 1.25 percent salary increase in the third year of the contract.

The school board still faces contract negotiations with the administrative, clerical and custodial employee units in the district, with all contracts expiring in June. But teachers’ salaries represent 76 percent of the salaries in the school district, according to Kamberg. So settling the teachers contract figures to give the school board breathing room in finalizing the school budget for a May 17 vote.

The initial school budget proposed by the East Williston district administration represents a 2.85 percent over the current year’s budget to $51.9 million. That would push the tax levy up by 6.19 percent.

Settling the contract ends several months of “difficult negotiations” begun last fall, according to John Coyne, president of the East Williston Teachers Association. Coyne said the teachers recognized the need to cooperate with the district in holding down costs in light of the current state fiscal crisis.

“It was very clear there were needs in the districts that needed to be addressed and we felt it was necessary to meet those needs,” Coyne said.

Asked whether the prospect of layoffs was a motivating factor in reaching the agreement with the board, Coyne said the teachers viewed the wage freeze as a way to potentially save jobs. But he said the school board had not offered any assurance that there would be no teacher layoffs in the district.

“Every time we begin the budget process, there’s always some concern that there would be layoffs.” Coyne said.

Apart from the implicit prospect of layoffs, Kamberg said the teachers recognized the financial bind the school board was facing with the anticipated loss of $324,000 in state aid among other factors in the current fiscal crunch.

“We have a union that understands the time that we’re in. What we saw was a cooperative effort,” Kamberg said, adding that the board is hoping for similar cooperation from the other employee bargaining units.

Coyne recalled that reaching the last contract agreement with the board had created an “uncomfortable” situation in which the teachers worked without a new contract for two years before striking a five-year deal.

‘It’s very comforting that we were able to reach a deal that both sides that we can live with,” he said. “We have a long road ahead of us.”

Coyne said he felt reassured by the shape of the initial budget presentation.

“It comes down to numbers and funding,” Coyne said. “Once again I have to trust that the board will do what it can to maintain the programs.”

In his statement on the settlement, Kamberg said the school board and the teachers share a “common bond” in “protecting the education of the youngsters we are sworn to serve.”

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