Fargo teachers and the School Board have a new contract ready to ratify.
Negotiators for the Fargo Education Association and the board cobbled the pact together quickly Wednesday night, thanks to the work of an impasse mediation panel and a renewed sense of collaboration at the bargaining table.
The contract includes salary increases over the next two years of 4 percent and 3 percent, respectively, not including money for lane changes (increases in pay tied to higher degrees and work toward them).
With all benefits included, the district will pay $2,643,438, or 5.06 percent, more in total compensation to teachers in 2007-08.
In 2008-09, the district will pay another $2,513,750, or 4.58 percent, more in total compensation.
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That pegs total teacher compensation costs at roughly $54.9 million in 2007-08 and $57.4 million in 2008-09.
Teachers will also get one-fifth of their regular pay rate for teaching another class rather than one-fifth of the first-year base pay. That is expected to cost the district about $96,000, said Dan Huffman, assistant superintendent for business services.
FEA President Ellen Dunn said teachers may vote on the contract Wednesday at the Fargodome.
Huffman said the School Board would call a special session next week to vote on the contract if it is approved by FEA members.
From the applause by the 30-plus teachers in the audience and the smiles on negotiators' faces as they reached across the table to shake hands, it appeared as if everyone felt they had won.
"I think it's good. We're very pleased," said FEA lead negotiator Erin Mowers. "We got a lot of language we wanted in the contract from the very beginning."
School Board President Robin Nelson said the final bargaining session had a lot of difficult issues to tackle, but the mediation panel smoothed the path to an agreement.
"I think we came in with the intent to clearly collaborate," Nelson said.
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Mediation "broke the logjam. It gave us a break" to have someone else analyze the issues, she said.
Neither party appeared to want to take the process to state fact-finding, which would have delayed the process far beyond next week's start of the school year.
Early in the evening, both parties agreed to contract language that would allow them to take up individual issues without opening up the full contract to negotiation.
That gave them the opening to table several issues for study that could have required long debates. Nelson and Dunn were given the task of creating the study committees.
Teachers asked that the issue of creating a policy for involuntary transfers be first on the list. The subject has been a sore point for teachers because the lack of a policy has led to disparities in how moves are handled, they said.
Longevity pay, a reduction-in-force policy, summer school pay, and overall compensation issues are other subjects to be studied.
The board got some give on paying new teachers more to keep the district competitive, though some minor tweaking was done to the salary matrix to alleviate FEA concerns of salary compression.
The board can also pay stipends to teachers who gain national certifications to reward them and encourage professional growth. The issue prompted a battle earlier this year over whether the board was trying to introduce the payments outside of the contract.
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The groups also agreed to get together a year from now to set dates for training on collaborative bargaining and to improve overall communication between teachers and the School Board.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Helmut Schmidt at (701) 241-5583
