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Austintown teachers get contract
By Elise Franco
Austintown
The Austintown Education Association finished the 2009-10 school year with a new contract.
The contract was approved Monday by the board of education by a 4-0 vote, with a fifth board member, David Schnurrenberger, abstaining without comment.
Superintendent Vince Colaluca said the teachers union began negotiating the contract in April 2009. It is retroactive to 2009 and runs through 2011.
Colaluca said no teacher will receive a pay increase for the 2009-10 school year that just ended. But the salary scale, including longevity pay, will remain the same as the previous contract.
Colaluca said a reopener was negotiated into the contract for the 2010-11 school year that will allow them to renegotiate benefits and salary.
“A lot of this next negotiation will be based on the new state biennial budget,” he said.
The superintendent said the district was able to avoid layoffs thanks to several retirements and a shuffling of positions, especially at the high-school level.
“We were able to make some staff adjustments at Fitch,” he said. “Some of the teachers will have a few extra sessions.”
A $350 signing bonus was also included for teachers, which Colaluca said was made possible because of the position shuffling.
“We looked at only moving people around through attrition,” he said. “And when a person who’s been with the district for many years retires, that frees up $80,000 to $90,000 per person. That’s major savings.”
The board approved hiring personnel within the school district instead of looking outside to fill positions that were left vacant due to retirements, Colaluca said.
Dr. David Ritchie, board president, said he, as well as the other board members, are happy to find a resolution to the yearlong negotiations.
“It took a long time to get there,” he said. “With the cooperation of the teachers, administrators and the board, we were finally able to work out a contract.”
Dr. Ritchie said the board has a good working relationship with the AEA.
“We know it’s tough to go that period of time, but we hope everyone is happy,” he said. “We wish we could have given them more money, but it’s just not there.”
Colaluca expressed his gratitude to the teachers for working with the board to agree on a contract.
“They hung in there and faithfully negotiated with us” he said. “Where many other unions would have issued a strike notice or an impasse, we never got to that point.”