Teachers’ union contract details - 2013
Clark County
Clark-Shawnee: Details unavailable until ratified and approved, possibly this week
Greenon: Third-year salary and benefits re-opener – experienced-based step wage increases; base pay remains frozen at 2010 levels; healthcare concessions
Northwestern: Three-year contract – salary increase of 1.5 percent in first year, 1 percent in second year, 0.5 percent in third year; increase school day by 30 minutes.
Champaign County
Graham: Details unavailable until ratified and approved
Mechanicsburg: One-year contract – no wage increase and frozen step increase; higher insurance costs; no unused personal day payout — converted to sick days
Sources: district superintendents
Tighter budgets, the federal Affordable Care Act and the new teacher evaluation system have led to shorter contracts and less contentious negotiations between school districts and teacher unions, a state official said.
Between May 2012 and June 2013, there were 55 teacher contracts finalized statewide, according to data provided by the Ohio School Boards Association.
That included 22 teacher unions that agreed to both a salary freeze and an increase in health insurance premiums at some point during the length of the contract, according to a newspaper analysis.
Van Keating, director of management services for the Ohio School Boards Association, said the 55 contracts finalized between 2012 and 2013 is “not an unusual number” for a year’s time span, but noted that prior to Senate Bill 5 — which was repealed by voters — contracts were typically three years in length. Now, one- and two-year contracts are more common.
“It’s hard to figure out what the pattern is now,” Keating said.
Shorter contracts have made it easier for school treasurers to certify that the district will meet the contract’s financial requirements, Keating said.
One-year deals are more likely locally too, said Dan Kaffenbarger, superintendent of both Mechanicsburg Exempted Village Schools and the Madison-Champaign Educational Service Center.
His district and its teachers’ union — which represents the certified employees of Mechanicsburg — signed a one-year agreement this month. The previous contract was three years.
“It’s the best we could do,” he said, explaining that the major sticking point from both sides of the table was uncertainty with state’s new teacher evaluation mandate, along with district finances.
“We started in May and didn’t really finish until August, and the lion’s share of the time has been spent on teacher evaluation and reduction in force language,” Kaffenbarger said.
Teachers there agreed to no wage increases and a freeze on step increases for a second year in a row, as well as higher health care out-of-pocket costs and deductibles through a new district insurance plan, Kaffenbarger said.
“We were staring at an 18.8 percent increase in our premiums,” he said. He estimated the new plan will save the district $150,000 to $200,000 annually.
Teachers also agreed to no more payouts on unused personal days as in the previous contract, trading that with unused personal days being converted to accumulated sick leave at the end of the year.
Its classified employees also signed a similar agreement; however, it’s for three years.
“With our classified folks, there wasn’t this onerous evaluation system that we had to carry along with it. So that was a lot easier series of negotiations to go through,” he said.
Administrators won’t receive a raise and don’t get step increases. They’re also on the same insurance package.
With the concessions and improved state funding, the district avoided fiscal watch this for at least this year, according to Kaffenbarger.
The one-year agreement will give the district and teacher’s union a year to better understand how the evaluation system will work and see how the economy shapes up, he said.
“I think in these economic times and with the funding the way that it has been for the past several years, I think that’s as good as you get,” Mechanicsburg Education Association President April Baker, intervention specialist at the elementary school, said of the agreement.
The district lost about 13 percent of its certified and non-certified staff the prior year, she said.
“We try to lessen the impact on student learning as much as possible,” Baker said.
Updates to the state’s evaluation system language made an agreement that much more difficult, she said.
“When you have an ever-changing political climate and laws that affect the requirements that you have to follow, now that plays into it,” Baker said. “Because it was new, it wasn’t just going through and tweaking something, it was going through and developing language for the entire evaluation system and reduction in force.”
Northwestern Local Schools and its teachers union agreed on a three-year contract in June, Superintendent Tony Orr said.
Staff received base pay increases of 1.5 percent in the first year, 1 percent in the second and 0.5 percent in the third, according to Orr.
The deal will also increase the school day by 30 minutes.
“The main reason for that is we see the need to provide as much instructional opportunity for our students as possible to help them succeed in a 21st Century world,” Orr said.
“We did that primarily for the changing in the new state core standards … just to increase the one-on-one student/teacher interaction.” union President Jeff Caivano said.
Caivano said it was able to cut a three-year deal rather than one year for several reasons, including that it’s not a Race to the Top district, which factors into the evaluation system.
District finances, he said, are also projected to be in the black at least for the next five years, which was more favorable to a longer-term contract. He credited that in part to concessions made by support staff and teachers, particularly with health insurance, in the last contract.
And, he said, it will save officials from negotiating a new contract in the middle of a state budget. “We’ll have a renewal (levy) coming up (in three years), and we’ll be able to see what the status of the school is financially,” he said.
Two other local school districts were nearing signed agreements with their unions.
Graham Local Schools and its teacher’s union were expected to meet Monday to discuss one outstanding issue, Superintendent Norm Glismann said.
He declined to discuss details of the proposal until it’s finalized and approved, but said it was likely to be a three-year deal because the evaluation process was worked out as part of district policies that were finalized this summer.
“The history in our district is that teacher evaluations have never been negotiated,” he said.
Graham’s classified employee union contract was finalized and approved earlier in the summer, he said.
And Clark-Shawnee has a tentative agreement with its education association which was to be voted on soon by teachers and potentially go before the board of education Tuesday, Superintendent Gregg Morris said.
He also declined to discuss details of the tentative agreement.
Most local school districts the Springfield News-Sun spoke with didn’t have contract negotiations this year, but at least one had a mid-contract salary and benefits re-opener this year.
The Greenon Education Association is under a three-year contract through next year, but re-opened discussions on salaries and benefits in its final year. The Greenon Board of Education approved the agreement at its meeting Thursday.
Educators there agreed to experience-based step wage increases, but salaries will remain frozen as they have since 2010 and they agreed to healthcare concessions, district spokeswoman Megan Anthony said.
“We believe that the healthcare concessions our teachers agreed to will lead to significant savings for the district and may help stabilize our healthcare costs. With no additional state funding and a projected deficit in 2015, I appreciate all our teachers have done in recent years to help improve the district’s financial picture,” Superintendent Dan Bennett said in an email statement.
It won’t be clear how much the district will save until after educators select from three coverage options in October, Anthony said.
“Our teachers have had no salary increases for the last three years, so we are happy to be able to reinstate steps this year,” Greenon Federation of Teachers President Amy Geiger said in a statement. “With the healthcare concessions, many of our members may still see a decrease in their overall salary. Our teachers care a lot about our students and our community, and we recognize that these concessions are necessary to help improve the district’s finances.”
Geiger is a teacher at Greenon High School.
Northeastern Local Schools’ two certified and classified employees unions’ contracts are set to expire June 30, 2015, but have a re-opener set for salary and benefits discussions next year. Those negotiations will begin after Jan. 1, Superintendent Lou Kramer said.
Meanwhile, West Liberty-Salem Schools will go back to the table next spring, with salaries likely to be a major area of discussion, Superintendent Kraig Hissong said. “The staff have been on a pay freeze for 3 years,” he said.
Springfield City’s three union contracts will also expire in summer of 2014. Stacey Tipler, director of Human Resources, said she anticipates the new evaluation system being a talking point between the district and teacher’s union.
Southeastern, Tecumseh, Urbana and Triad are under current contracts and have no negotiations going on at this time, their superintendents said.
Staff Writer Steven Matthews contributed to this report.
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