Mahwah
June 6, 2012 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • Page 3
School board, teachers’ union agree on contract
by Frank J. McMahon The Mahwah Board of Education and the Mahwah Education Association have jointly announced that both parties have approved a new contract. The MEA represents the teachers, secretaries, nurses, custodians, maintenance staff, school bus drivers, and school aides in the district. The new contract covers the 2011-12, 2012-13, and 2013-14 school years and provides for a 2.5 percent salary increase in each of the first two years, and a two percent increase in the final year of the contract. The contract does not cover the 2010-11 school year, when the teachers’ union did not have a new contract. In addition to the salary increases, the two sides reached an agreement on the MEA’s concern about the use of the teachers’ time at meetings and who would set the agendas for those meetings, and the board’s proposal that the days on which Back to School Nights are scheduled be full days for students and teachers as opposed to the current half days. Edward Deptula, the school district’s business administrator, advised that the agreement calls for three one-hour meetings led by the administration each month. The MEA agreed that Back-to-School Night school days will be full days for teachers and students. Previously, Deptula explained that the school board decided to offer salary increases higher than the stateimposed budget cap in order to compensate for the additional time teachers might have to spend at meetings, and the fact that there would be full versus half days when Back to School Nights are scheduled. MEA Co-chair Meaghan Monahan described that part of the agreement, saying the matter was “settled amicably with administration obtaining the time needed to effectively meet the needs of the students, balanced with the desires of the teachers for flexibility and their need to fulfill their professional duties.” Deptula explained during the negotiations that some budget items, such as utilities, snow removal, and tuitions might come in under budget to offset the salary increases. He advised there were no other agreements in the new contract. Monahan advised that the contract agreement would be retroactive to the beginning of this school year and explained that the settlement of a new contract was delayed because the union was waiting to see if a new law was passed that would have required state employees to contribute more toward their health benefits. Monahan thanked the members of the community for their patience and support during the contract negotiations. The MEA and the school board have been involved in negotiations since February 2010, five months before the last contract with the MEA expired on June 30, 2010. There were two negotiation sessions with the MEA before the union filed a petition with the Public Employment Relations Commission to go into an impasse process in March 2010. The MEA filed an unfair labor practice charge against
the board of education with the PERC late last year, claiming the school district failed to provide the union with the documents it needed to negotiate a new contract, but Charles Saldarini, chairman of the school board’s Negotiating Committee, and Deptula said the committee had provided a lot of information to the MEA, even though some of the information was easily available to the MEA on the school board’s agenda or in other public documents. During the negotiations, the MEA published several full page advertisements explaining that its members will be paying 35 percent of their health care insurance cost within the next three years, and, in its last contract agreement, the MEA agreed to change to a lesser health insurance plan that saved the school district $1.2 million. The MEA also claimed that its members pay 6.5 percent of their annual salaries toward their pensions.