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Burrillville teachers OK proposed accord |
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Tuesday, 09 September 2008 |
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By JOSEPH B. NADEAU BURRILLVILLE – The town’s nearly two-year-long impasse on a new contract with teachers may be coming to a close. The Burrillville Teachers Association voted Tuesday to ratify a proposed agreement between the sides, leaving it up to the School Committee to decide if it too would accept the settlement.
The proposal was offered by Bruce Kogan, the neutral mediator working with the sides, and was a set package that must be accepted in its entirety.Town Administrator Michael Wood has been reviewing the financial impact of the agreement on the town but did not wish to discuss the details while the proposal remained pending final approval.“There is a fairly significant impact,” Wood said. The terms of the agreement would date back to Sept. 1 of last year when the teachers’ last contract expired and they began working without a contract, according to Wood. Teachers returned to work this year as the contract talks remained unresolved. The teachers would already be in the second year of a three-year contract if it were to be approved as a result of the proposal.The full impact of all of the changes under such an agreement would come due next September, but would have to be included in the town’s budget work for the Fiscal 2010 budget beginning July 1 of next year, he noted.Complicating the funding of such a pact would be the state’s cap on property tax increases for communities and the already tight fiscal constraints the town is operating under, he noted.The property tax cap on municipalities set increases at no more than 4.75 percent this year and will be dropping another quarter percentage point next year, he noted.If a new agreement does bring in higher school department costs, Wood said the School Committee would likely have to weigh making further budget cuts or seek additional revenues elsewhereTom Landry, the National Education Association Rhode Island representative for the BTA, on Tuesday confirmed the teachers’ approval of the mediation settlement proposal but also declined to give details on the pact. The teachers met on the agreement Tuesday and voted by a majority of those participating to accept the offer, Landry said. “It did not pass by a huge margin but it passed nonetheless,” he said of the vote. Landry declined to detail the exact number of teachers voting for or against the proposal.Kogan put together the settlement offer as a “last ditch attempt” to resolve the impasse between the sides and looked to address issues of concern to both groups, according to Landry.“This is by no way a “win, win” agreement for the BTA,” Landry said while noting teachers would be granting concessions in the pact as would the School Committee.The School Committee has had the pact since the sides last met on Aug. 29 and has not yet acted on it, he said. The sides have not met since that time. “We would like to see the committee pass this thing and move on,” Landry said.School Committee Chairman Raymond Trinque would not venture a prediction on his own panel’s action regarding the proposal but confirmed it would be considered at its meeting Tuesday night at high school.The School Committee, however, has already faced a difficult year in setting the current budget and making any additional funding changes would not be easy, according to Trinque.“There are not simple agreements to be made,” he said. “Any agreement we make would be difficult,” he said. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 11 September 2008 )
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