The Bethlehem Central School District and its teacher’s union have ended contract renegotiations, but with no consensus made the contract remains the same.
As the district faces massive cuts in state aid and proposed expenditure reductions across the board, it approached the Bethlehem Central Teachers Association Union to reopen its current contract, which calls for more than 5 percent raises for this year and next.
Superintendent Michael Tebbano said even though the district didn’t realize any savings, he was appreciative of the teachers’ willingness to come to the table for the sake of their school.
We tried, and we’ve explored a number of options. I commend the teachers for at least talking, and I’m very grateful, he said. `I’m saddened we couldn’t see this resolved, but we’re going to get through this together.`
The BCTA is one of the few teacher unions in the state to re-open its contract; a move applauded by district officials and community members alike. Ultimately union representatives and the school’s board of education could not agree, though board president James Lytle said they were on the same page.
`I think we came pretty close,` he said. `We were not miles apart on this.`
Lytle said the unions and the district as a whole are unsure of `what the world is going to look like in even a year from now,` and that the cash-strapped district simply couldn’t make any future concessions.
`They [teachers] were prepared to give up something and justifiably expected something in return,` said Lytle. But in the end, he continued, the district wasn’t prepared or in the position to make promises on the union’s next contract in return for a reduction in today’s.
Lytle concluded that the next BCTA contract negotiation would be `tough.`
The current contract contains an average of a 3.23 percent salary increase until 2010 with a `step increase` for each position, which translates into a more than 5 percent salary increase.
With 465 employees covered by the teacher’s contract, the district’s budget increases each year by hundreds of thousands of dollars just to cover the pay raises. There are two other union contracts with the district: The Bethlehem Central United Employees Association and Bethlehem Principals Association.
The BCUE covers 509 employees, such as maintenance workers and other essential staff ;and the BPA covers the district’s 16 principals and administrators that typically collect the highest salaries.
Tebbano told local residents about the contract talks during the district’s final public budget meeting on Feb. 9, and now that talks are over he said there are no intentions of approaching the other two unions about re-opening its respective contracts.
The superintendent said that even if teachers had agreed to reduce their raises, the Bethlehem district would still be facing reductions in expenditures over this year’s budget. In his reduction plan unveiled on Wednesday, Feb. 25, Tebbano proposed three levels of cutbacks, with the first being the least reduced plan and the third containing much deeper cuts.
Tebbano said Bethlehem could eliminate nearly $1.46 million of spending in the first tier, an additional $990,000 in the second tier and then an additional $2.15 million in the third.
The three tiers represent more than $4.5 million in budget cuts.
Nothing is `off the table,` according to district officials, as the board of education goes through each school department every Wednesday night through March. The meetings are open to the public and begin at 7 p.m. at the school’s district offices, 90 Adams Place, Delmar. “
