Kalama avoids strike, OKs contracts
Tuesday, September 2, 2003 8:19 AM PDT
By Eric Apalategui
Printable version
E-mail this articleKALAMA -- In what literally was an 11th-hour decision -- just half a day before classes started this morning -- a frustrated Kalama School Board approved contracts with teachers and coaches unions Monday evening.
"We just wanted school to be starting (today) and get this settled as best as we can," school board member Lisa Stevenson said after Monday's 4-1 vote.
The deal with the Kalama Education Association, which ratified the contract Friday, averted the threat of strike as the schools open today. The board originally approved the contract Saturday but had to revote Monday to give proper public notice.
To pay additional health-care costs in the contract, the district must slice another $158,500 from its budget during the three-year contract. Superintendent Jim Sutton said he would have to dip into a levy for maintenance and operations that voters approved in February, which didn't sit well with weary board members who nevertheless didn't see a better way to settle the dispute. The levy will raise about $3.36 million over three years.
The district agreed to reimburse teachers for part of the "carve-out" money that the state takes from them to pay for health-care benefits for retirees, effectively lowering insurance costs for teachers. Those reimbursements will cost the district another $13,000 this year, rising to $41,500 in the final year of the contract.
The district also added two more paid development days -- work days without kids in the classroom -- to teachers' schedules, giving them a boost in earnings at an increased cost to the district of $26,000 a year.
To help pay those costs, the district will cut the $140 that it usually budgets for each student's textbooks and other supplies to $100. Teachers also gave up $100 each from their professional growth fund, used for training, to ease health-care expenses.
Board members refused early union demands to raise teacher's salaries by as much as 10 percent over the state's scale, board member Dave Walker said. The state's pay scale ranges from about $29,000 for new teachers to about $57,000 for teachers at the top of the scale. Kalama teachers can earn more because they will work three days -- included the two just added -- longer than the state's 182-day work year.
Sutton and board members said Monday night that faltering state funding for education helped set up the sometimes shaky negotiations between the district and its unions. But board members also wished the union had been more involved in the discussion when the district decided to ask voters for a levy, which they said might have included more money for teacher benefits.
Bruce Rader voted against the contract with teachers because it robs money from the levy.
"We told our people that was for supplies, maintenance. There was nothing about funding for teachers in there," Rader said. "I want the teachers more involved in this budget process."
Russ Ipock was frustrated, too, but he said the settlement at least met their major goal.
"We can live with the contract. The main thing is to get the kids back in school."
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