District Completes Bargaining With Four of Five Unions

The Reading Public Schools District has completed with four of its five unions, and the fifth should only be a matter of time, Superintendent John Doherty said Monday.

The teachers, paraeducators, custodians and administrative secretaries associations all agreed to similar deals while the administration has designed a deal with the food service employees that simply hasn’t been ratified yet; those employees have been away for the summer.

Doherty said he expects them to ratify the deal when they return for work next month.

Each of the contracts will last through the end of financial year 2014 and include minimal increases in pay.

“Each of these bargaining agreements will bring financial stability to our budgets during these difficult economic times,” Doherty said in a memo to the school committee.

In year one, three of the four unions who ratified their agreements will receive neither a cost of living adjustment nor a step increase. The fourth union, the teachers, will receive a one percent cost of living adjustment and a step increase that will be delayed until the year’s midpoint, but will receive a flat $600 raise without cost of living or step increases in year two.

At Monday’s joint meeting of the school committee and finance committee, Doherty said that all of the union’s “recognized the fiscal constraints we are under” and brought creative ideas to the bargaining table.

He also added that the district had completed bargaining remarkably early compared to other nearby districts.

His statement that he was “very pleased” with the outcome prompted the finance committee to ask if that meant that the school department would be turning excess funds back to the town.

“This is actually in line with our budget,” Doherty said.

School committee chairman Charles Robinson put it another way: “It allows us to live within our means.”