Districts, Teachers Beat Pay Deadline
By Bao Ong, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
Jan. 18–Three Dakota County school districts settled teacher contracts in the nick of time to meet a state-imposed deadline this week.
The teacher contracts in South St. Paul, Burnsville-Eagan-Savage and Inver Grove Heights expired in June 2007, and the new two-year agreement takes the union and school districts through June 2009.
“It’s been a tough bargaining year, and the outcome has been somewhat of a cliffhanger,” said Education Minnesota President Tom Dooher. “Whenever we have a state deadline in place, contracts get settled.”
The new contracts generally provided small bumps to teachers’ pay and increased the portion employees contribute toward health insurance coverage.
In South St. Paul, where there are 236 full-time teaching positions, a 3.5 percent increase in pay will be given the first year of the contract to teachers in the “steps 1 to 10″ category, those teachers with less experience and advanced degrees. Teachers in “steps 11 through 20″ receive a 2.5 percent increase the first year. All teachers will see a 1.25 percent increase during the second year.
The board approved the contract Monday, and the union ratified it Tuesday — in time to meet that day’s state deadline and save the district thousands of dollars. The 15 Minnesota school districts that failed to meet the deadline must pay a $25 per-student penalty.
The gap in pay increase during the first half of the contract is meant to increase the salaries of less experienced teachers and to keep more staff members in the district, said Colleen Mertesdorf, South St. Paul’s director of business services.
There was no change in health insurance coverage this time around, she said.
That was not the case in Burnsville-Eagan-Savage, where teachers choosing family coverage agreed to increase their contribution from 12 percent to 15 percent.
The two sides, however, agreed to work on implementing a health savings account plan by July 2009, to combat rising health care costs.
Burnsville teachers will receive a 2.75 percent pay increase each year of the contract.
A tentative agreement was reached Dec. 17, but the union didn’t ratify the contract until Jan. 7-8. The school board approved it Jan. 10. The contract covers about 700 full-time teaching positions, said Sue Grissom, the district’s human resources director.
In Inver Grove Heights, a drawn-out negotiation didn’t see the board approving a contract until a day before the deadline.
Kelly O’Donnell, the chief negotiator for Inver Grove Heights teachers, said one of the main challenges was settling retirement benefits.
The two sides agreed to 2.5 percent increases in pay each year of the contract for the 249 full-time teaching positions in the district.
“We’re confident the contract will work,” O’Donnell said. “But time will tell.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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