Mineola ed board, teachers reach pact

Michael Scro

After two years of negotiations, the Mineola Board of Education has signed a memorandum of agreement with the Mineola Teachers Association for a four-year contract.

The contract, which is retroactive to the 2011-12 school year, calls for a 4.75 percent increase over the four years of the agreement, according to Mineola Superintendent of Schools Michael Nagler.

Nagler expressed satisfaction with the contract.

“You’re working with a document that has been negotiated over 50 or 60 weeks, each one of those negotiations you can fight over a single word for a few days,” Nagler said. “There is a long process that gets to the current contract.”

The teachers already received a state-mandated 1.5 percent salary increase for the 2011-12 year. For the first six months of the 2012-13 school year, teachers will be at their 2011-12 salary, with the step increase deferred until February. 

For the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years, they will receive a 1.25 percent increase each year including annual step increases of .5 percent. 

Under state civil service law, the previous contract remained in effect until a new agreement is negotiated. 

Nagler said the state-mandated tax cap played a major role in the two sides reaching an agreement. 

“In my opinion, the levy cap changed the way we negotiated,” Nagler said. “It made it simple.”

Less helpful, he said, was the addition in the midst of the negotiations of the new state-mandated Annual Professional Performance Review.  

“This threw a wrench in the works,” Nagler said.

In his presentation on the settlement, Nagler outlined three ways that a teachers salary structure can increase: a step which is a year-to-year movement; a percent schedule which is a flat percentage of increase on the entire salary schedule; and monies earned for credits above a masters degree.

Nagler said that if the teachers didn’t want to negotiate, they would still cost the district 1.5% every year (roughly $450,000). 

“We are saving as a district, half the year’s money. We’re paying it six months later so in the end of the year, saving $225,000,” Nagler said.

The negotiations created a new system for teachers who are club advisors based on the number of hours a club meets and created a separate salary schedule for Pre-K teachers. 

For 2012-13, the budget for Mineola’s Pre-K and Universal Pre-K is approximately $300,000. The district can now hire teachers for $42,000 with reduced health benefits. 

Nagler said he fears that budget cuts will force the district to “do something with Pre-K that we really don’t want to do…. This is a way to keep the program.”

In other developments:

Assistant Superintendent of Finance Jack Waters gave a presentation on the district’s Teacher Retirement System. Waters showed said the estimated increase in the Teacher Retirement System is $1.5 million.

“If we take our whole budget, and take 2 percent of the levy, TRS alone is more than that…which is not good,” Nagler said. 

Waters explained that the district is permitted under the tax cap to present voters with a tax levy increase of 3.05 percent for 2013-14.

“This additional $800,000 will have to be paid, but we hope to not be in a position where we’re over the cap by 1.05 percent,” Waters said.  This amount is over the 2 percent levy cap, which as a result is exempt from the 2 percent tax cap levy calculation, however still has to be paid for by the tax payers.

“The increase of $1.5 million total is significant. That amount alone is equal to the total 2% increase we’re allowed to go up conforming to the Cap…our current tax levy for 2012-13 is $76.2 million,” Waters said.  “Therefore, 2 percent of that is $1.5 million.”

Update: The estimated increase for the TRS is $1.5 million dollars, not $800,000.  The $800.000 is factored in above the 2 percent levy cap, which makes it exempt from the 2 percent tax cap levy calculation.  It does not however exclude this from being payed for by the tax payers.

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