Lake Bluff School District 65 Teachers Ink New Contract, Give Up Control of Fund

teachers have a new three-year contract, one that interim Superintendent Ben Martindale calls a “traditional collective-bargaining agreement” because it does not include the clause that allowed teachers to control a pool of school revenue to pay for their salaries, benefits, school expenditures and professional development.

The Lake Bluff Teachers Council signed the new contract Tuesday after working without one since June 30. 

has operated with this special SAVE clause in its teacher contract for at least 15 years, according to Jane Lair, the district’s finance director.

“It was very unique for a school district,” Lair said.

“It really provided them a level of authority,” Martindale added.

Lair said the Lake Bluff Teachers Council never abused the budgetary power, and complimented them for a “very nice job of managing the funds.”

However, she added it was better to have a traditional contract with the school board in control of funds.

Teachers Agree to Changes to Health Care, Salary Schedule

In addition, the new contract asks teachers to begin paying 3 percent agof the premium cost toward their health care benefits, not to exceed $350 per year. Previously, teachers did not pay anything.

“Three percent may not seem much, but coming from zero, it allows that door to be open,” Martindale said. “And we have an insurance committee set up to continue to explore how we can save money on health costs.”

The contract also has a new salary schedule that gives teachers an approximate 3 percent pay raise each year. Martindale said teachers previously were receiving 4 percent annually.

“That’s a significant accomplishment,” Martindale said. “When you have to rebuild a salary schedule, that is a very large sacrifice by teachers. Salary schedules are guaranteed. Many of those schedules were built in those years when the norm was a higher percentage.”

The change allows to remain “somewhere in the middle” in teacher pay when compared to surrounding elementary school districts, Martindale said.

For the 2011-12 school year, first-year teachers with a bachelor’s degree will earn $40,220. Teachers with a master’s degree and 10 years of teaching experience will earn $60,307. The highest salary on the schedule is $106,732 for a teacher with a master’s degree, 30 hours of classes and 25 years of teaching experience.

On the extra duty schedule for positions like musical director or lunch supervision, the salary schedule includes a 50-cent bump in hourly pay each year starting at $28 per hour for the 2011-12 school year.

Economy Creates Sensitivity

Martindale said changes to benefit compensation and restructuring the salary schedule indicated both sides were cognizant of the economic backdrop to the negotiations.

“I think the teachers were very sensitive to what the economic conditions are. What they were asking for and what they agreed to reflected they were sensitive,” he said. “The board was very sensitive of that. I know they very much wanted a level of participation in benefit compensation.”

“I can assure that we very much kept that in mind as we talked about the cost of the change in this contract vs. the other,” he added. “This contract will well fit into where our resource allocation is and allow us to continue to maintain them.”

A three-year contract is considered an achievement against the current economy, according to Martindale, since other districts have faced one-year agreements on the table from teachers.

“Teachers are saying the economy is going to turn around, so they don’t want to be locked into a lower percentage for three years,” he said. “They think in a year or two the economy will come back and they can get a higher percentage.”

Entering the Middle of the Process

Martindale entered the negotiation process in midstream after Superintendent John Asplund left for a new job downstate and the district hired him starting July 1. The discussions at that point were on the contract’s language because much of it centered on the SAVE clause.

“For the first two to three meetings, we got through that,” Martindale said. “We set up a process to have sign-offs on tentative agreements for those items we talked about in that session. When we started, there didn’t seem to be any tentative agreements on anything, and yet they had been meeting for six months. I could sense there were tentative agreements but no evidence of it.”

Tom Brown, president of the Lake Bluff Teachers Council, declined to comment on any specific parts of the contract.

“We are glad to have reached an agreement that is fair to both the board and council,” he said by email.

Lair said both sides left the table in agreement.

“There is a good relationship between the school board and the teachers coming out of this,” she said. “There is no animosity. That’s important going forward.”

To view the contract, visit the District 65 website.