BY DARRELL HALEN
When the results were announced, a group of teachers clapped and cheered.
A three-year teacher’s contract was approved by Pelham voters 396-331 during a special vote on Tuesday, Oct. 23, at Pelham Memorial School.
“It was a little close, a lot closer than I would have predicted,” said a relieved and happy Susan Harden, president of the Pelham Education Association. “I’m shocked. Amazed.”
The contract was not recommended by the town’s Budget Committee, and Harden said before the polls closed that she viewed that as a huge obstacle for the union to overcome.
“I usually don’t agree with them, but a lot of Pelham does,” she said.
After a proposed contract providing annual salary increases averaging 5 percent was rejected in March, representatives of the school district and the union revised the agreement. A Superior Court judge approved the School Board’s request to hold the special vote.
The special district warrant article that voters passed calls for increases in salaries and benefits of $283,514 in 2007-08, $324,437 in 2008-09 and $340,600 in 2009-10.
Teachers will receive salary increases of $1,760 in the first year, $1,840 in the second year and $1,920 in the third year. Increases will average 3.5 percent in the first year, and 4 percent in the second and third years.
Because the 2007-08 school year has already begun, some of this year’s increase will be paid retroactively, Harden said.
Harden said lowering pay hikes in the revised contract – putting them in line with increases approved for other school employees – probably helped the agreement pass.
The new contract also provides an increase in pay for extracurricular positions of 3.5 percent during the first year only, and it adds nine new extracurricular positions.
It also changes the school district’s contribution toward health insurance costs.
Currently, the school district pays the equivalent of 85 percent of the most expensive health care plan to all plans. So for cheaper plans, the district’s contribution is higher. Under the contract just passed, the district’s contribution decreases to 80 percent by the third year.
Contributions to health care costs had been a major issue in the debate over the contract. The cost-sharing change in the revised contract was the same as the one rejected in March, and opponents had argued that teachers should be making greater contributions to their health insurance premiums.
Harden and other proponents called the revised agreement a fair contract, and argued that the town needs to retain good teachers and that the union was making concessions in health care contributions.
A little more than 8 percent of registered voters went to the polls. During the early evening, four supporters stood outside the school waving to voters as they drove in.
Several residents said they were not aware of any organized campaign against the contract.
Leading up to the vote, the teachers union mailed 1,000 post cards to parents of school children and other possible supporters. The mailings were followed up with phone calls from union members. Fliers were also distributed at Pelham High School’s homecoming. The union spent about $500 to get its message out, and got advice from the National Education Association office in New Hampshire, Harden said.