[C]ontract negotiations between the Norwich School Board and Marion Cross School teachers hit an impasse last week. Both sides hope that a third party mediator will help them bridge the gulf between their salary, health care and continuing education proposals.
“This is not admitting defeat, we did our best at the table, now maybe it is best to get somebody in here to help us out to get to an agreed upon contract,” said Neil O’Dell, chair of the Dresden school board and a member of the school district’s negotiating team.
Mary Coffey, the VT-NEA representative for Marion Cross, did not respond to requests for an interview.
The negotiations for a contract that would start in the 2017 school year are being held in public.
Marion Cross School in Norwich is a K-6 school for the Norwich School District, but it is also part of the interstate district known as Dresden School District where students attend Richmond Middle School and Hanover High School in New Hampshire.
In October, the Marion Cross teachers opened bargaining, asking for a 12 percent raise to their base pay over three years and that the town cover 98 percent of their health care costs.
The school board balked.
Two bargaining sessions later, the points of contention remain mainly over salary and health care. In their latest proposal, the school district offered an additional $650 to each step increase in the first year and $850 the second year. They left the third year blank because teachers had suggested the possibility of a two-year instead of a three-year contract.
The teachers dropped their request to a 2.5 percent increase on base pay each year for three years.
Rick Newton, a physical education teacher and negotiator, said at the November meeting that teachers want a percentage increase to their base pay instead of a dollar amount added to each step. “Younger teachers in the school need it to survive and help with their cost of living,” he said. “They really need that cost increase and the step. That is why we are so adamant about it.”
Each year, a teacher gets an increase in base salary for gaining a year of experience; this is called a “step” increase. The school board increased each existing step, but teachers would like an across-the-board percentage increase on this base step that accumulates each year, starting at 2.5 percent.
At the November meeting, Elly Fors, a second grade teacher who lives in White River Junction, said that she works a weekend job to make ends meet. She said paying student loans and the cost of living are difficult for young teachers that are just starting out. “I work a weekend job, 10 to 15 hours on Saturday, to be able to survive in this community,” she said.
Norwich School Board Chair Tom Candon, who is negotiating for the school district, said that the teachers’ request actually increases salary more than 2.5 percent because it is added to the total increase of the steps. The step increase represents a 1.3 percent increase and when adding that to new salary, it becomes 3.8 percent for the first year and 5.8 percent in the second year.
“We are concerned with a big difference between the proposals, as they currently stand there is a 3.8 percent increase in the first year and a 5.8 percent in the second year and ours have about 2 percent per year,” said Candon at the December meeting. “When you look at total money it is still above the CPI (consumer price index).”
The two sides haven’t been able to reach agreement on health care either. All Vermont teachers must move to new health care plans by Jan. 1, 2018, making it a big part of the bargaining this year.
The Vermont Education Health Initiative (VEHI) is offering four different plans with the same network and the same doctors, but premiums are lower and there are out-of-pocket costs for teachers — unless the school district offers to cover them.
The four plans include: Platinum, Gold, VEHI Gold Consumer Directed Health Plan and the Silver Consumer Directed Health Plan. The school board has focused on the Gold Consumer Directed Health Plan plan while the teachers want to consider the Gold plan.
Because there are four plans, it is difficult to negotiate prices, according to Jamie Teague, business administrator for SAU 70. “I think health care complicates it (negotiations) terribly this year. If that dynamic weren’t there, I think we would have gotten to a point we are comfortable with quicker,” she said.
Depending on the plan, the school district has offered to pay between 78 and 100 percent of premium costs the first year of the contract and between 64 percent and 99 percent in the second year.
Under the teachers’ current contract, which runs out at the end of the 2016-17 school year, teachers pay 16 percent of their premiums.
The district is also offering a 50/50 split with teachers to help pay for deductibles; they are listed on the VEHI site.
By the December meeting, the teachers offered to pay 12 percent of the Gold plan premium and asked the district to cover 88 percent. They also want the school district to pay for 90 percent of the total maximum out-of-pocket expenses for services and prescription drugs.
Candon said that he thinks the board has a strong proposal, but the differences when it comes to health care is a problem.
“When building a budget this is a significant increase to ask the community to take on,” Candon said.
The school district is not trying to level fund the budget. Their proposal represents an increase of $33,000 the first year and $31,400 the second year. The increase includes some cuts to continuing education.
Similar to negotiators in Burlington over the summer, the Norwich school board has been saying that it needs to bring teacher salary increases and benefits in line with what those in the community experience.
Candon said that raises for many people in the area are between 1 and 2 percent.
Last year, contract negotiations in Dresden and Hanover, where Norwich students go to middle and high school, ended with wage increases between .5 percent and 1.75 percent.
The average teacher pay for teachers for grades 1-6 at Marion Cross School is $71,035, according to the Agency of Education Teacher and Staff FTE report for 2015-16.
The school board found that Marion Cross teachers are the 11th highest paid in the state. On average, teachers in Hartland make $6,000 less than Norwich teachers in the same grade, White River teachers make $12,000 less, Woodstock teachers make $13,000 less, Sharon teachers make $16,000 less and at the Newton School in Strafford teachers make $21,000 less, according to Candon, who referenced AOE numbers.
Justin Campfield, a member of the school board who is not on the negotiating team, said at the November meeting that the board has to present a budget to the town that will pass on Town Meeting Day. “We have to sell this budget and convince town voters … if they aren’t receiving increases in their salary, if they feel like they are paying a lot out-of-pocket for health care, that’s the environment we are going to have to sell this budget in and we don’t want budgets to fail.”
During a public comment period, Marguerite Ames, a Grade 6 social studies and science teacher, asked the school district, “When is the last time a school budget failed [in Norwich]? Not in at least 20 years.”
“I don’t want to be on the board that sees that budget go down,” said Campfield.
