The Sweet Home Education Association and School District 55 reached agreement in concept for compensation and benefits for the 2003-04 school year Friday afternoon.
In the agreement, the teachers will receive step increases.
Those teachers not eligible for step increases will receive a one-time stipend. The stipend will be equal to 1 percent of their salary. Teachers at the top end of the salary schedule are not eligible for step increases.
Teachers will also be allowed to use sick leave to take care of sick family members. The teachers have sought the expansion of their sick leave for several years.
The cost of the package is approximately $136,000. The step increase is estimated at $106,000. The one-time stipend will cost an estimated $20,000. The deal on sick leave is estimated by the district to cost about $10,000.
The two groups met Friday for about six hours without their hired negotiators from the Oregon School Boards Association and the Oregon Education Association. They had originally not planned to meet until Aug. 25.
By Aug. 28, the step increase would have had to be implemented under the existing contract language. To provide money for the pay increases, Supt. Larry Horton had to make cuts in the approved budget for 2003-04. Those included not hiring a new counselor to replace a retiring counselor and additional cuts in sports. At the junior high, that meant wrestling and the dance team were targeted for cuts.
The two teams hammered out ideas to avoid those cuts yet still fund the pay increases.
The district will cut two non-student-contact days next year to provide some $64,000 of the cost. Those days include Oct. 10, a state in-service day. The district will hold only one of two student-led parent-teacher conferences, holding regular classes on one of those days and closing schools the day before Thanksgiving.
In another deal, each high school teacher will work as substitutes as needed during two prep periods each month. This will save about $46,000 in budgeted substitute costs.
The district will require only two teachers to serve on building site councils, a savings of $7,000.
Savings on retirement contributions for two teachers working on special contract next year will account for another $16,000.
Total, the district and teachers identified and agreed on $135,000 in offsets to keep the agreement “cost neutral” to the district.
The district will hold its contribution to insurance premiums at $485. Money saved by teachers opting out of insurance will be used to help pay the premiums of the rest of the teachers. The district will retain the savings from the first five teachers who opt out of insurance as it did this year.
“We’re not keeping up,” teach Alan Temple said. Even with steps and the one-time stipend, “we’re falling behind” because of insurance premiums that will increase by 17 percent; but “we’re trying to help out the district here.”
“I appreciate that the staff realizes that we’re in a financial crisis that has guided us into this agreement,” Supt. Horton said to the teachers. “We wouldn’t do a freeze in a normal year. I appreciate the board being sensitive to the fact they’re representing the citizens of the community…. I think that we have stayed within a cost-neutral perspective, and you helped us get there. I need to say thank you.”
The deal is based on a $4.778 billion statewide funding level by the legislature. If the legislature budgets $4.9 billion for education, the district would receive approximately $190,000 more than it budgeted in revenues.
If that happened, the teachers and district talked about a plan that would cost the district an additional $60,000. Instead of the one-time stipend, all teachers would receive a 1-percent raise, the cap on the district’s insurance premiums would be increased to $500.
The two sides will work on contract language between now and the meeting on Aug. 25.
The two sides have not agreed on compensation packages for a potential second and third year to the contract, nor have they settled on the length of the contract.