Time to settle in Austintown

Time to settle in Austintown

It is time for the Austintown Board of Education and the Austintown Education Association to get past any perceived slights or abuse — real or imagined — and ratify a contract that it is fair and realistic.

That contract is the one already agreed to by negotiators on both sides, and one that the board has described as it last and best offer. It is also one the AEA membership has rejected by an overwhelming margin.

If the teachers believe they can get more by holding out for another month, until their nemesis, Board President Michael Creatore, leaves office, they are likely to be sorely disappointed. Creatore ran as a budgetary conservative and he continues to serve as one. And while he chose to run again, there is no reason to believe that he would not have won re-election had he been on the Nov. 6 ballot. Incumbent or newly elected board members would be making an unwise political move if they were seen as more malleable in the hands of the teachers union than Creatore.

The Mahoning Valley once again faces extreme financial challenges. There has been the cumulative loss of thousands of jobs at the Lordstown plant of General Motors and Delphi Packard Electric in recent years. With the full impact of Delphi’s bankruptcy reorganization still unknown and the sale of Forum Health’s facilities still in the works, it would be irresponsible for any government entity in the valley to be anything but conservative in negotiating employee contracts.

The contract provides a 1 percent increase in the base the first year and none in the second. And it requires a very reasonable health insurance contribution of 8.5 percent, which will be capped at $90 for the family plan in the next school year.

It should also be remembered that many teachers receive automatic raises from year to year as they work their way up the experience ladder.

It is an agreement that neither the teachers nor the taxpayers are likely to do cartwheels over.

But to imagine whether any richer contract can be offered, the teachers and the board need look no farther than the recent experience of other school districts in passing levies seeking additional funds. In short, they fail.

School districts, including Austintown, must not only anticipate living within this year’s budget and next year’s budget, but they must look for ways to hold down costs far into the future.

To the extent that various work rules, including the amount of in-school planning time provided to high school teachers, is interfering with approval of a contract, we can only express the same disbelief that we expect is shared by most taxpayers.

Very few taxpayers are likely to support a work schedule under which high school teachers are in class for only five 50-minute periods a day, a total of 4 hours and 10 minutes. Any teacher should understand that the day of the 4-hour-day is over.

Teachers are valued members of the community, and they should remain so. But they dare not act as if they are above the laws of economics in the communities in which they work.