While Octorara figures were not included in the Jan. 6, 2011 Brian Wallace story, “Teachers salaries rise here even as schools face deficits,” district residents will find this story of interest:
Articles.Lancaster online.com/local/4/333652
Wallace reports the most recent school contracts (he has previously reported Octorara is now negotiating) give teachers an average 3.6 percent pay increase and that other professions are receiving much smaller raises. The story reviews salary increases in 10 Lancaster County districts and the impact these will have on those taxpayers.
For those interested in a thumbnail sketch of the last decade of Octorara teachers contract negotiations, here are facts and figures from my news archives:
In November of 2002, the district’s (then) 193 teachers received a four-year contract which increased salaries by 14.1 percent over four years, while saving the school district about $580,000 per year (eight-tenths of a mill) in health care costs. The district switched from traditional Blue Cross to Personal Choice.
The contract increased the starting salary for new teachers to $33,250, a figure which rose to $39,500 in the fourth contract year. John Lee, the business manager at that time, said the new contract would “give the school district the ability to attract good, new teachers.”
Octorara Area Education Association president Donna Edwards characterized the contract as “fair,” but said the teachers were “treated unfairly during the process.”
Teachers threatened to strike in September and October of 2002 but continued negotiations. The contract also included a retirement severance bonus and new supplemental contract positions for teachers.
Many school bells later, in September of 2005, the school board and OAEA gave quiet, overwhelming approval to an early-bird collective bargaining agreement which increased teacher salaries by 3.18 percent for five years. The new contract ran from July 1, 2006, and ends on June 30.
The union and school board said the contract would cost taxpayers 2.72 percent per year ($411,146) in new money for the term of the contract. However, an increase in employee contributions to health care premiums cut that figure, leaving the total cost to district taxpayers at $352,533. That figure did not reflect the incremental step increases already built into the district’s compensation package for teachers, which average 1.32 percent annually.
In 2005 the median salary for an Octorara teacher was $59,187. There have been two early bird contracts for Octorara in 10 years, although a strike was narrowly averted in 2002. The union went out on a four-week strike during the 1994-95 school year over a controversy involving salaries and benefits, along with key issues surrounding academic freedom and parental rights.
-30-