State Fact-Finder Pushes Three-Year Deal

A state fact-finder has recommended a three-year deal between the West Deptford school board and West Deptford Education Association (WDEA) that provides for raises each year over the life of the contract, according to a report released Friday.

Susan Wood Osborn, the state-appointed fact-finder, recommended the deal, which is closer to what the WDEA proposed, as a compromise on contract negotiations that have dragged on for 15 months. Her proposal includes salary increases of 1.5 percent, 2.5 percent and 2.0 percent for 2010, 2011 and 2012, respectively.

“I recognize that neither the board nor the association will be completely happy with these recommendations,” she wrote in her report. “While these recommendations will require each side to compromise, it is time to get the contract settled and restore stability to the labor relations environment and predictability to the budget process.”

The school board, by contrast, was seeking a two-year contract that would expire next June, and offered no salary increase the first year of the deal and a 1.75-percent increase for 2011-12.

That proposed contract would have essentially required negotiations to start all over again this coming December, something Osborn disagreed with in the report.

“I believe the parties need to create some peace and stability in the employer-employee relationship, and get back to focusing solely on the business of educating students for a while,” she wrote.

Osborn also dismissed the school board’s request to eliminate language of the old contract that prohibits teachers from working before Labor Day and another provision that would’ve required teachers and staff to increase health care contributions, should legislation be passed that mandated increased contributions, calling the latter provision, “speculative.”

Speculation aside, that exact legislation was passed by the Assembly and Senate this week.

The heart of the report dealt with proposed salary increases; Osborn asserted the WDEA’s proposal for salary increases is reasonable, based on what other districts in Gloucester County have negotiated in the past several years. She called the WDEA’s proposed 1.5 percent increase for 2010-11 “a reasonable concession to the difficult economic times we are now in,” and would put association members back at the salary they were making at the end of the last contract, given the mandatory 1.5 percent of salary contribution to health care benefits currently in effect.

Osborn also called for a 2.5 percent increase for 2011-12, which she estimated would cost the district about $400,000, justifying that increase at least partially based on the increase in state aid for this year and savings of just under $2 million the district has created through job cuts and hiring freezes.

Still, Osborn noted West Deptford teachers make the highest average salary both in the county and in the district’s district factor group, at $67,815, but also noted that about 40 percent of West Deptford’s teachers are at the top of the salary scale, and that the school year, at 188 days, is longer than the state average–though individual school days are somewhat shorter.

She also recommended in the report a cap on salary increases of 2 percent, given the state law that prevents districts from hiking the budget by more than that amount on any given year.

The WDEA has indicated they support the fact-finder’s report, and the school board is set to give a final decision by Monday.

WDEA Proposal:

School board proposal:

Fact-finder proposal: