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Youngstown teachers approve pact contract
By Denise Dick
youngstown
The union representing city school-district teachers has approved a new contract.
William Bagnola, Youngstown Education Association president, said YEA “overwhelmingly” approved a contract Thursday.
YEA represents the city district’s roughly 600 teachers.
Negotiations started May 4, and the previous contract expired June 30.
Bagnola declined to release details of the contract until it’s approved by the board of education.
Anthony Catale, school board president, couldn’t be reached.
“It’s a good, decent contract in light of the situation we find ourselves in,” Bagnola said.
The school district is under the supervision of two commissions, he said, one of which is a fiscal oversight commission. That panel also must approve the pact.
“We’re not out of the woods yet, and we understand that,” Bagnola said, referring to the district’s financial troubles.
The fiscal oversight commission was installed in November 2006 when the state auditor’s office declared the district in fiscal emergency. The other panel is an academic recovery commission.
The last teacher contract, approved in 2007, included a freeze of base wages over its three-year life. Teachers also accepted a freeze of base salaries in 2006 in an extension of the previous pact.
If it’s approved by the school board and the fiscal commission, it would be the last contract to be settled for district employee unions.
The board last week approved contracts with the 295-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union and crafts unions.
AFSCME includes secretaries, food-service workers and custodians. The crafts unions include plumbers, electricians and carpenters.
Those two-year contracts call for raises of 1 percent in each of the two years.