Longview teachers will work one less day and won’t get cost-of-living raises this school year, according to a labor contract approved last week by Longview School District and the teachers’ union.

Teachers still will receive step pay increases, which are based on experience and academic credentials.

The contract covers salary and benefit terms for just one year.

When they built this year’s budget, district officials assumed teachers would get no cost-of-living increases. After cutting $5 million and eliminating about 30 teaching positions, district officials were relieved they won’t have to cut anything more as a result of contract negotiations.

“If there would have been COLA increases, we would have had to lay off more staff,” John Vencill, human resources director for district, said Wednesday.

“Our teachers should be saluted for stepping up in a number of areas to help during these difficult financial times,” said district spokeswoman Sandy Catt. “Agreements were made that will help with district efficiencies and with the budget constraints.”

District and union bargaining teams met six times since last spring. The Longview Education Association, which represents about 430 teachers, approached negotiations hoping to “maintain as much as we could” rather than bringing a list of new requests, said LEA President Linda Santman.

“When we met with our members last spring, because we already had news about RIFs, no COLAs and loss of stipends …. we made a decision we just didn’t want any more cuts,” she said.

“We’ve had other years where we’ve not had a pay increase, quite a few years actually that we’ve lost the COLA,” she added.

In budget cuts, teachers lost one of two professional planning days this year.

Teachers did win a bid to reduce middle school class size caps from 34 to 32 students this year. The adjustment helps teachers deal with the addition of a seventh period to the daily schedule at all three middle schools, Santman said. Extra class mean more work for teachers, she noted.

“We were happy to get a slight improvement there,” Santman said.

In a victory for the district, the two sides agreed to limit extra pay to teachers when class sizes exceed salary caps. The limit is $150,000, Vencill said.

Money is so tight, the school district asked teachers to precisely report how much time they spend covering for other teachers who must leave class early. An example: If a coach leaves early to travel with a team, colleagues covering for him would estimate the substitute time to the nearest 15-minute increment.

“That’s an indication of how closely they’re watching their budget,” Santman said. “I think the taxpayers should know they’re being fiscally responsible. … If you’re here for 13 minutes, you’re getting paid for 13 minutes.”

“The district was looking at everything — looking at things that in normal years would have seemed like a minimal amount of money,” she added.