After a nearly two-year, deeply acrimonious standoff, the Sag Harbor School Board approved a new contract with its teachers’ union on Monday night, with both sides acknowledging the sore feelings experienced during extended negotiations, saying that they hope the new deal would be the first step on a smoother path to the future.
Under the terms of the agreement, teachers will receive average annual salary increases of 2.6 percent through the 2012-13 school year—annual seniority-based increases will push the average hike to about 5.3 percent a year—and pay a slightly higher contribution toward their health insurance.
The base salary increase ranges from 2.5 percent to 2.7 percent during the six years of the contract, which is retroactive to 2007-08, the year the last teachers’ contract expired. Teachers entitled to seniority, or step, increases would see an average additional 2.7 percent, though step increases are weighted so that newer teachers, with lower salaries, get larger annual percentage increases than higher-paid veteran teachers. Teachers receive a step increase for each of the first 27 years of service. Just eight of Sag Harbor’s 124 teachers have reached the step ceiling and will receive only the base salary increase.
Throughout the protracted contract struggle, the School Board argued that the annual step increases must be included in any salary discussion.
The health care contribution was also a major sticking point during the negotiations. Currently, all teachers pay 15 percent of the annual health insurance premium. Under the new contract, they will pay 17.5 percent, beginning on July 1, 2011. The contract does allow a teacher the option to seek out different health plans from the top-of-the-heap plan they are offered now, a move that would save both the district and the teachers money.
The contract also cuts the amount teachers will be paid for supervising the cafeteria during lunch periods, from $26 per period to about $17 per period, which district Superintendent John Gratto, Ph.D., said will save the district about $19,000 per year. Teachers will also be required to post information about courses, homework assignments, grades, attendance and test dates on the school website.
The agreement finalized on Monday brings to end a dark period for the district, which operated under the shadow of the tense standoff for two full school years. A year ago, teachers led a march from downtown Sag Harbor to the school and took to wearing T-shirts during the school day emblazoned with slogans calling Sag Harbor “a district in crisis.” For a time, public sentiment seemed to lean toward the teachers, but as the economy continued to falter and the budget process last spring showed a 12-percent tax hike for this year, teachers became the targets of criticism by many residents. Board members warned of future layoffs if salaries and health care costs are not brought under control in the long-term.
“This is probably one of the most difficult things we do. We know a lot of different staff personally, our children came up through their ranks—it gets bitter and it got very bitter,” School Board President Walter Wilcoxen said shortly before the board unanimously approved the new contract, which was ratified by the Teachers Association of Sag Harbor last Thursday night.
“This agreement is not the end all for great agreements—it’s just the end of a cycle,” he added.
Teachers union head Eileen Kochanasz, a guidance counselor at the school who retired during the negotiation process, agreed with Mr. Wilcoxen’s assessment that both sides should look toward the future.
Michael Wright on Dec 8, 2010