PRESS RELEASE
January 17, 2008
School Committee and NEASK Contract Agreement
The South Kingstown School Committee has reached a
tentative agreement on a successor agreement with the NEASK and will consider
it at a January 17th special meeting.
The agreement covers the period between September 1, 2008 and August 31,
2011. The agreement is one that
balances the need for the district to operate within the limitations of the
property tax cap legislation and the current state fiscal climate and to simultaneously
continue progress in advancing the districtÕs educational improvement goals.
The School Committee and the NEASK entered into an
expedited negotiations process in November in the hopes of reaching a
settlement. The purpose of the
expedited negotiation was to reach a reasonable and fair agreement without a
protracted negotiations process that would distract the School Committee and
teachers from its core effort, improving the schools for students. To that end, both parties restricted
proposals to a critical few that both fit within available resources and
continued the districtÕs progress.
As a result, agreement was reached in a short time.
The School Committee had two priorities in
negotiations: (1) to continue the
districtÕs educational progress and (2) to enable the district to live within
available revenues during a difficult financial time. The cost of the contract agreement fits within the budget
proposal now under consideration by the School Committee.
Agreement
Details
Salary
For each of the three years of the agreement salary for teachers on the top step increases by 3.05 % and all other steps increase by 1%. This will have a net effect on wages of 2.61% for 2008-2009, equating to $655,489, the coming fiscal year, and will permit the district to operate within the local property tax cap and without a state aid increase. In the second and third years the cost of the contract, including both wage and step increases, is 3.27% and 3.17% respectively.
The School Committee was concerned that this agreement could in future years impact its ability to attract new teachers due to the small increase applied to earlier steps. If such occurs, the School Committee, to address this concern, may, in its sole discretion, elect to start beginning teachers on step 2 if such is necessary to maintain competitiveness.
Benefits
There are two changes to the current benefit structure. One, the teachers now parallel the townÕs language that creates the right to change health insurance carriers, assuring that the town and school may move together in exploring potential cost savings through carrier change. Two, the co pay is extended to retirees with the rate frozen throughout the five years of available health care.
Contract Language
Changes to contractual language fall into two general categories, those that clean up existing language and those designed to move the districtÕs education program forward.
Cleanup
Program Improvement
o Create elementary common planning time through an extension of the school day and aggregated time one afternoon with teacher facilitators leading the work.
o Increase the responsibilities of high school department chairs to include coaching of department members for instructional improvement and setting aside a period per day for that work.
o Extend the high school common planning time for 3 years with option of moving it to the afternoon.
o Refine teachersÕ job-embedded professional development responsibility to better align with school improvement efforts.
o Create a day at the high school to review the portfolios of graduating seniors.
o Update Middle School Instructional Coordinator job description
o Expand the mentoring program for teachers new to the district as available funds allow and make the coordinators an interview position (instead of seniority).
o Define the current teacher learning center structure with defined roles and responsibilities.
The contract provides stipends for teachers who have taken on additional responsibilities under this agreement. Those responsibilities include leading teacher planning groups, documenting the time, and coordinating with the building principals. The total cost of the stipends is $25,500 per year, of which $15,000 is allocated to the elementary schools and $10,500 to the high school. This structure is already in place at the middle schools. The stipends increase the net wage cost of the contract by 0.1%, from 2.61% to 2.71%.
Cost
The table below details the cost of the agreement to the school department in each of the three years. In year one, the cost includes only the added cost of the salary increases, plus the additional stipends. In years two and three the cost includes both salary increases and step increases in order to illustrate the total impact on the budget. The settlement was based on available funds identified in the pro forma budget in the current year and the wage increases in the second and third years based on funds available under the property tax cap. The cost analysis in years 2 and 3 assumes continuance of the current rate of retirements (11 per year).
|
|
Base Cost |
Increase $ |
Increase % |
|
08-09 Base (steps only) |
$25,118,883
|
|
|
|
Year 1 (2008-09) |
$25,799,872
|
$680,989 |
2.71% |
|
Year 2 (2009-10) |
$26,644,738
|
$844,866 |
3.27% |
|
Year 3 (2010-11) |
$27,490,308
|
$845,570 |
3.17% |
|
* = Years 2 and 3 include both
wage and step increases |
|||
The table below takes the added personnel cost for each year of the contract and adds to it the associated cost of FICA and retirement in order to show the total impact.
|
|
Cost |
FICA |
Retirement |
Total |
|
Year 1 |
$680,989 |
$52,096 |
$101,195 |
$834,280 |
|
Year 2 |
$844,866 |
$64,632 |
$125,547 |
$1,035,045 |
|
Year 3 |
$845,570 |
$64,686 |
$125,652 |
$1,035,908 |
The retiree health care co pay will not directly impact the operations budget. The settlement will eventually generate an estimated $36,000 per year in savings on retiree health care, but these funds will be directed to offset the cost of that program and not to the operations budget. Since the co pay will not take effect until teachers retire under the new agreement, the impact will not begin to take effect until July 1, 2009 and will not reach its full effect for five years as teachers with the co pay requirement retire and those without it move off health care.
It should be noted that the cost analysis provided is for only those items listed. There are revenues and expenditures that impact the budget that are not controlled by the collective bargaining agreement with the NEASK. Examples of these for revenue include town support, state aid, and Medicaid reimbursement, and for expenditures items such as retirement contribution rates, new state mandates, and tuition expenditures. These are subject to change, and, if they do change, affect the schoolÕs overall budget capacity.
The agreement changes the assignment of the department chairs one period per day from instruction to instructional support as a resource reallocation to accelerate the schoolÕs implementation of improved teaching strategies. This change does not increase the budget since it will be absorbed within existing resources. Provided below is a breakout of the value of the reallocation based on the cost of replacement teachers using third step.
|
Department
Chairs |
9.0 |
|
Periods
reallocated |
9.0 |
|
FTE Equivalent |
1.8 |
|
Step 3
salary |
$46,754 |
|
Times FTE |
$84,157 |
|
FICA |
$6,438 |
|
Retirement |
$12,506 |
|
Insurance |
$21,600 |
|
Total |
$124,701 |
In summary, the School Committee was determined to reach an agreement that allowed it to maintain the operations and progress of the school system while living within the fiscal confines of the property tax cap and limited state aid. This agreement does that -
Contact: Robert Hicks (360-1301, [email protected])