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122002 Bedford Central School teachers to pay more ( but not much more) for Health insurance
By FRANK NARDOZZI
With the help of a mediator and a marathon bargaining session, the Bedford Central School District was able to reach a contract agreement with the Bedford Teachers Association that provides for moderate salary increases, as well as new teacher contributions toward their health insurance.
The new three-year contract, retroactive to July I, was announced by School Board President Dot Fallon at the hoard's meeting Wednesday night. It was adopted by a vote of 6-0, with Trustee Joe Whelan absent clue to illness. The Bedford teachers voted to ratify the agreement on Monday.
The contract provides a salary increase of 3.3 percent, 3.4 percent and 3.5 percent for teachers over the three-year contract period. However, it also provides for a percentage contribution by teachers toward their health insurance, a cost sharing provision that was a primary goal of the school district.
Teacher contributions will rise from a relatively low flat contribution of $250 a year for the family plan and S100 for the individual plan to 8 percent of the total cost of each insurance plan to the district.
Supervisors Association bargaining unit, which is tied to the teachers' agreement on health benefits, will also start contributing 8 percent toward their health insurance. The Civil Service Employees Association, the union representing the schools' building and grounds staff, agreed to pay 5 percent last January.
The new contract almost triples the dollar amount teachers pay toward their health insurance and will he among the highest rates of contribution in the region, Mrs. Fallon said.
Big Deal !!! Compared to what most families (who make considerably less than these over paid teachers IT IS NOTHING !!!! -JPG
Significant changes were also made in the areas of deductibles, co-pays for medical and prescription drugs and out-of-pocket maximums, which will also result in savings to the district.
"Effectively, we were able to make our teachers greater partners in our health care program as costs continue to climb over time," Mrs. Fallon said.
The rising costs of health care are currently running about $1 million over budget for the year, according to the school hoard's finance chairman, Mark Slivka, and have posed a serious fiscal problem for the school district for the past several years.
"A major goal of the board was to control these rapidly escalating costs," Mrs. Fallon said. "The hoard was unwavering in its conviction that teachers must assume an increased share of these expenses.
On the teachers' side, the union was happy with the salary increases and certain salary adjustments and were glad to obtain a few new health benefits.
"It was very important to us that the wage increases that
we got were the going rate in the region," said
Ken Kurzweil, president of the Bedford
Teachers Association.
He called the salary increase "standard" and the health insurance contribution "something that is happening all over the area with teachers' unions.
"The 8 percent is well within what we anticipated and what other districts in the region are also doing at this point," Mr. Kurzweil said.
He noted a couple of new health benefits that the teachers had obtained including coverage for the services of certified social workers and benefits for domestic partners.
"We were also able to help some smaller groups of people that we represent like the occupational therapists, the school nurses and the teaching assistants over and above the across-the-board salary increases that the teachers got," he said.
The other big change that the teachers were able to obtain was the elimination of the "pre-steps" for starting teachers.
In the last contract, the union agreed to salary deductions for teachers newly hired, below the amounts called for in the contract, because the school district successfully argued that starting salaries were significantly higher than in some other districts in the region.
The pre-steps reduce the salaries of starting teachers by S3,000 in the first year, $2,500 in the second year, and so forth over five years.
"The situation has changed some what and the pre-steps will be phased out over the course of the new contract," Mr. Kurzweil said.
The total cost of the salary increases and adjustments was estimated to be about $1.6 million to $1.8 million per year for each year of the threeyear contract, according to Mark Betz, assistant superintendent for business and administrative services.
Mrs. Fallon said that the salary provisions "ensure that we remain competitive with other districts in the region to continue to attract and retain the best teachers for our community's children.
"As stated in our board of education goals for this year, we have worked to reach an agreement that allows us to meet our instructional goals, ensures the district's ability to recruit and retain an outstanding faculty, and respects the community's ability to pay," Mrs. Fallon said. "This agreement, ratified on Monday, Dec. 16, by the Bedford teachers, reflects many months of give and take on both sides."
The school board president said that the negotiation process actually began about a year ago when the board and the school district administration conducted a review of the 1998-2002 contract as the first step in developing negotiation goals.
After working with labor counsel to develop proposals and a negotiation strategy, the school district started exchanging proposals with the teachers' union in February.
Throughout all of last spring and into the fall, the parties engaged in more than 20 negotiation sessions. During that time, resolution was reached on most matters, except those involving health care and salaries, Mrs. Fallon said.
Under advice from counsel and believing that further progress could not be made without outside assistance, in early November the school board and the Bedford teachers filed a joint declaration of impasse and agreed to share the cost of a jointly acceptable mediator appointed by the Public Employees Relations Board.
On Sunday, Nov. 24, the mediator met with both sides in a non-stop bargaining session in the central administration building that lasted about 14 hours, from 1 p.m. to 3 a.m., when an agreement was finally reached.
"As with any negotiations, there were objectives that we were not able to achieve, but, in the overall evaluation, the board believes that this contract will serve the community well," Mrs. Fallon said.