Clarence teachers to get big raises
Top pay to reach $90,085 in four years
By Niki Cervantes
Updated: 07/17/08 8:08 AM
Clarence teachers will receive an average 18 percent salary increase over four years, as well as 3.5 percent annual increases for extracurricular tasks.
In return, teachers will shift to a single health insurer, a district official said.
The new four-year contract was negotiated to keep up with “what we anticipate will be inflation,” said James Ptak, the district’s director of personnel.
The switch to a single insurer initially should save the district about $460,000, he said.
By the contract’s end, a teacher with a master’s degree on Step 1 will earn $44,986, or $6,986 more than the current $38,000 a year — an increase of 18 percent.
The contract tops out at $90,085 for teachers at Step 19, or a 10.53 percent increase from the current $81,500, Ptak said.
It also includes big raises for teachers in the middle of the steps — a bracket that the teachers union has long claimed was particularly underpaid compared with other districts, including those without the high student test scores posted in Clarence.
Teachers at Step 10, for instance will receive a 23 percent raise, to $62,675 at the contract’s expiration in 2012 from the current $50,750.
“We tried to make adjustments” for the middle steps, he said, adding that the district had done so in the previous contract as well.
The total cost of the new contract to the district was not immediately available.
Frank Cantie, president of the Clarence Teachers Association, did not return a call seeking comment.
The union overwhelmingly approved a memorandum of understanding for the pact earlier this month.
The School Board approved the memorandum unanimously Monday.
Negotiations stretched beyond the June 30 expiration of the previous contract as the two sides haggled over priorities. Teachers were focused on pay raises that kept up with inflation.
For the district, the issue was slowing the rise in health care costs by changing insurers.
Ptak said teachers now will be covered by Independent Health plans, which have less-expensive premiums. The downside is that those premiums are still rising — just not as swiftly as some.
“We will see moderate increases in premiums, as opposed to outrageous increases in premiums,” he said.
As in the previous contract, the district will pay 92 percent of the premiums, and the teachers will pay 8 percent.
The district’s recently approved $68.9 million budget for the coming school year increased spending by 4.38 percent, or $2.8 million — a good chunk of which was earmarked for health insurance increases.
The district’s share of teacher premiums was $3.39 million this school year and would have risen to $3.98 million without the switch to a single provider.
Now, the estimated cost will be $3.52 million.
Other changes include more pay for taking on extra school-related duties, such as coaching.
The pact also changes the amount of time teachers must wait before they can tap, if needed, into a “sick day bank,” Ptak said.
ncervantes@buffnews.com
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