BY DARRELL HALEN
Pelham voters will go to the polls in October to approve or reject a revised teachers’ contract.
A Superior Court judge granted permission to the Pelham School District to hold a special election on Tuesday, Oct. 23.
“All parties are very excited by the decision and look forward to the special session,” School Superintendent Frank Bass said at Hillsborough County Superior Court in Nashua after a brief hearing.
When voters went to the polls in March, they rejected, in a 1,491 to 1,187 vote, a three-year contract between the district and the Pelham Education Association that among its provisions provided raises averaging 5 percent each year.
Following the defeat, representatives of the union and the school district hammered out a new contract. It is roughly $250,000 lower than the one voters rejected.
“It’s a significant decrease from the original agreement,” said Bruce Couture, chairman of Pelham School Board.
The revised agreement will be the subject of discussion and debate at a deliberative session on Sept. 25.
It calls for salary increases averaging 3.5 percent in 2007-08; 4 percent in 2008-09; and 4 percent in 2009-10.
Teachers would receive increases of $1,760 in the first year, $1,840 in the second year, and $1,920 in the third year.
Those figures are lower than the increases proposed in the contract turned down in March: $2,430 in 2007-08, $2,340 in 2008-09, and $2,455 in 2009-10.
Under the revised agreement, a first-year teacher with a bachelor’s degree will earn $32,100 in 2007-08.
Under the rejected contract, the salary in the same year would have been $32,770.
Like the rejected contract, the revised one calls for stipends for extracurricular positions – such as athletic coaches and club advisors – to increase 3.5 percent during the first year but remain steady during the following two years.
The revised contract, however, adds approximately nine new positions over the life of the contract.
The revised agreement retains a change in cost sharing for health insurance that was in the rejected contract: The school district will contribute 83 percent in the first year, 82 percent in the second year and 80 percent in the third year of the most expensive health care plan.
Those contributions are constant, regardless of which plan a teacher selects.
Currently, it is a 85/15 percent split.
The total cost of the contract that was turned down would have cost taxpayers $392,033 in 2007-08; $396,307 in 2008-09, and $413,038 in 2009-10.
The new version will cost $283,514 in 2007-08; $324,437 in 2008-09; and $340,600 in 2009-10.
Leading up to the March vote, some opponents of the contract argued the raises were too high and teachers should be contributing more toward their health insurance premiums.
A majority of the Budget committee opposed the contract. The group will review and take a position on the revised agreement.
Sue Harden, president of the teacher’s union, hopes that residents will approve it this fall. She has said that the community needs to retain and attract good teachers.
“We’ll probably mount a public campaign to get our message out,” she said. “It’s a lot of work and not a lot of time to do it.”