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Contract freezes teacher salaries, hikes insurance
(by Sue Hoffman - June 15, 2011)
Contract freezes teacher salaries, hikes insurance
By SUE HOFFMAN
The Solon School Board approved a three-year teachers' contract Monday which freezes salaries and increases employee contributions to health care. The contract also reduces salaries for new employees and those entering the top of the salary range.
Under the agreement, teachers will forgo raises in base pay as well as step increases that are awarded for additional education and experience. The total pay freeze will save the school district $5.3 million during the contract period, which runs from June 14, 2011, to June 14, 2014.
An additional $3 million will be saved through changes to the employee benefits plan. The contract increases employee contributions to health insurance premiums from 10 percent to 13.85 percent and raises a family's out-of-pocket contribution to medical costs to $1,000. The contract also stipulates that any spouse who has coverage available at work cannot have primary coverage under the teacher's policy.
Solon Education Association, which represents teachers, recently approved the contract by a vote of 261-18, showing support by more than 93 percent of the members, according to President David Sheppard, who's a teacher at Orchard Middle School.
School board President Julie Glavin praised the new agreement as "an exceptional contract" that involved countless hours to achieve.
Board members Margo Morrow and Dorothy Seibert sat on the negotiations committee.
"It's always difficult to have negotiation when you have the best school district in the state," Mrs. Morrow said. She said all of the achievements and honors "did not happen by accident," but through years of working toward "a common goal of providing the best education we can for our students."
Mrs. Seibert noted "the big sacrifice Solon teachers have made" so that class sizes could remain reasonable and younger teachers can be retained.
"This is a groundbreaking agreement that safeguards the longer-term financial security of the district," School Superintendent Joseph V. Regano said. "Our community stepped up in May 2010 when it passed the last levy and now our staff has done the same things with this agreement. The contract preserves the long-term solvency of the district and enables us to continue doing what we do best and that is providing the highest-quality educational program to Solon students."
He said the national financial crisis struck in the fall of 2008, right after the last teachers' contract had been signed. Efforts to change the agreement were unsuccessful, he said, but the dialogue which started at that time helped achieve the current settlement.
"We're two to three years behind the public sector," Mr. Regano said about public employee salaries and benefits. He said he had promised the community during the last levy campaign that the situation would be remedied.
"We had two overriding goals entering into these negotiations," Mr. Regano said. "The first was to be fiscally responsible to our public while at the same time treating our employees fairly. The second was to achieve a settlement that reduces our expenditure slope to adjust to the financial reality of decreasing revenues. I believe this agreement meets both objectives."
"Solon school teachers made a great sacrifice in regard to this contract," Mr. Sheppard said. "We did it because we love this school system, we cherish this profession, and we wanted our community to know we appreciate all the support they have given us over the years.
"This contract will allow the school system that the teachers, administrators and community have built ... (to) maintain the quality our parents expect. We saved jobs, including those of our newer teachers, we kept programs intact, we kept classrooms from getting larger, and with this contract our teachers showed the commitment they have to our students and parents."
District Treasurer Timothy Pickana said the five-year forecast looks "vastly different and more favorable" than it did previously. "Of course we need to wait out the conclusion of the state budget process to assess our situation completely, but with the positive trends we have seen in Columbus so far this session, overall we are in a much improved position."
The agreement with SEA follows a settlement reached in September 2010 with nonteaching employees in the district's local Ohio Association of Public School Employees. The contract with OAPSE also contains a pay freeze and benefit plan changes.
In addition to freezing teachers' salaries, which average $70,000 annually, the contract reduces by 2.8 percent the highest salary level for teachers with the most advanced education and 30 years experience. The district currently has three employees at that level, school officials said. The contract also reduces the salary level for all new teachers by 6.75 percent.
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