Teacher Wage Freeze Approved For Upcoming Riverview School Year

After 16 months of negotiations, Riverview teachers have a new four-year contract, which was approved by the school district and the Riverview Education Association on Monday.

The contact states teachers will have a wage freeze during the 2011-12 school year before they receive raises beginning the following year.

Regular, full-time teachers will receive a total average annual pay increase of 3.4 percent over the last three years of the contract, which is retroactive from July 2010 when the last contract expired and lasts through to the end of the 2013-14 school year. Currently, there are 107 teachers under this contract.

“This helps Riverview balance the current budget cuts imposed by the state,” Frank Thompson, board secretary and business manager for Riverview School District said.

This year, the Pennsylvania Department of Education cut $432,000 in funding to Riverview, which, according to the press release from the school district, made the decisions for the contract a challenge.

“We all looked at the numbers,” Bob Lindeman, president of the REA and a teacher at Riverview, said. “It was a joint effort between the REA and the school district to come up with a solution. The school board, administration and teachers are committed to working together to make the community strong.”

According to Lindeman, the teachers were willing to consider the wage freeze since cutting programs or teachers to balance the budget was, in their opinions, not an option.

“Cutting something like that would have a significant effect on the district,” Lindeman said. “We did what we had to do so students could still have the future and choices they deserve.”

Lindeman said the REA and the school district were not necessarily happy about having to manage what he called “an attack on public schools” about the cut in funds.

“We said (the wage freeze) was something we had to do,” he said. “We didn’t want the children to suffer. The school district works really hard to deliver a top-notch education. The kids are going to be OK, and that’s the point of all we do.”

According to Thompson, this new contract will result in a small tax increase over the four years the contract is in place.

“There always are tax increases with a new teachers’ contract and wage increases,” he said.

In addition to the agreements around the wage freeze and salaries, teachers will also be required to make additional contributions to their health care because of the anticipation of cost increases in health care.

Thompson said other small topics were discussed but had no significant impact on the negotiations or the contract.