August 19, 2004

School board, unions approve new contracts

The Yellow Springs school board and the district’s two unions last week reached new contracts that provide raises for teachers and professional staff.

The unions, the Yellow Springs Education Association, which represents the district’s teachers, and the local chapter of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees, which represents support staff, ratified their contracts last Tuesday.

Shawn Jackson, the president of the teachers union, said that the more than 95 percent of the 27 association members who attended last Tuesday’s meeting voted to accept the new contract. Nancy Purdin, the president of the staff union, said that a majority of her union’s members approved its contract.

The school board unanimously approved both contracts at its Aug. 12 meeting.

The teachers’ contract, a one-year agreement, contains a 3.5 percent increase in salary. Teachers agreed to keep their current benefits package, which includes a $10 co-pay for office visits, $25 for urgent care and $50 for visits to the emergency room, and a $5 and $12 co-pay for prescriptions.

The language in the staff’s contract will remain in effect for three years, though the salary and benefit package is for one year and will be up for renegotiations next year. The staff union accepted a different offer than the teachers that includes a 4.25 percent salary increase and an increase in insurance costs, including $15 co-pay for office visits and an $8, $15 and $25 co-pay for prescriptions.

In all, the district offered the unions three packages for salaries and benefits. The third deal contained a 4 percent increase in salaries and an increase in insurance co-pays, to $15 for office visits and $8 and $15 for prescriptions.

The new contracts were worked out over a period of several months. District administrators and board members met with the teachers union bargaining team several times near the end of the school year, then again for one meeting in July, when a deal was reached.

The district and the support staff union, which has 24 members and represents secretaries, bus drivers, teachers aides and custodial and maintenance staff, discussed issues with the contract before formally holding a negotiating session earlier this month. The two sides reached an agreement in one day.

Jackson, who teaches social studies at the McKinney School, said that with the new contract the teachers association was able to achieve its main goal of “maintaining quality health insurance and reasonable co-pays.”

“We don’t want to get into an erosion of health care benefits,” he said.

Jackson called the teachers’ raise of 3.5 percent “OK,” and noted that the union “felt the district could have given a little bit more for the teachers’ sake.”

He said that an analysis of the district’s finances by the Ohio Education Association, the statewide teachers union, found that the Yellow Springs schools are in a strong financial position. “We thought it was easily affordable” for the district to provide a pay increase and “maintain quality health insurance,” Jackson said.

Purdin, the secretary at Mills Lawn, said that her union received a good deal. “We’re pleased with our excellent health coverage and percentage increase in salary,” she said.

Superintendent Tony Armocida described the salary and benefits packages as “good for this day and age.”

School board member Bill Firestone, who sat in on one of the negotiating sessions with the teachers union, noted that the district has a large surplus, which, he said, led to a “great demand for a substantial raise.”

Angela Wright, another school member who was involved in the negotiations, described the process as “amicable and collaborative.”

“I really felt quite good about it,” she said.

Armocida said he could not release copies of the new contracts until they are signed by the district and the unions. People involved in the negotiations said that the new contracts contain few changes.

The agreement with the teachers union, which has approximately 55 members, does allow the district to now rehire retired teachers. The contract also formalizes a district insurance committee, which, according to Wright, will be made up of the superintendent, treasurer, assistant treasurer, two board members, two representatives of the teachers union and two people from the staff union.

This year’s negotiations differed from the last time the district renegotiated with its unions in 2002 because both associations agreed to one-year deals related to salaries and benefits. Two years ago, the district negotiated two-year agreements with both unions that contained raises of 4.5 percent in 2002–03 and 4 percent the following year.

Armocida and Jackson both said that it is difficult to project the district’s budget into the future.

It’s “hard to make long-term commitments,” Armocida said, noting that he considers two to three years long term.

Jackson cited the challenge of school funding and the difficulty some district have to convince voters to approve tax levies. “The state’s got to come up with an equitable way to fund education in Ohio,” he said.

—Robert Mihalek