By Molly Walsh
Free Press Staff Writer
In a year of record school budget defeats and heated debate about legislative efforts to alter the state education funding formula in Montpelier, some taxpayers are looking closer to home for cost controls: They're asking local teachers unions to renegotiate promised raises downward.
Requests to reopen contracts that guarantee fixed pay increases have surfaced this year in communities such as Essex, Burlington and Colchester. Many teachers oppose the idea, and so do some school board members.
Education observers say requests to reopen contracts occur around the state periodically and contracts are occasionally renegotiated to alter certain details -- but almost never to reduce teacher pay or benefits.
Nonetheless, as communities face difficult choices such as trimming sports and foreign language programs and teaching positions, talk about contracts is heating up. At least 49 school budgets were defeated on the first try this year in Vermont and some school boards are hearing "no" on the second try. Colchester voters defeated the local school budget last week for the second time, amid criticism that cuts in planned spending were insufficient.
"Our concern was taxes are really high," said Maureen Lewis, a Colchester resident who voted against the revised budget. "I think they should tighten their belts at the school."
Colchester Superintendent Pamela Carnahan said that along with general complaints about the level of school taxes, voters expressed "some anger on the recent teachers contract."
Some residents want the board to look for additional savings by reopening a three-year teacher contract that was approved last fall after 11 months of difficult negotiations.
Between base pay raises and raises for longevity, the contract is projected to increase teachers pay 5.75 percent the first year, 6 percent the second and 6 percent the third. Average teacher pay in Colchester is $46,250 annually.
Colchester School Board Chairwoman Mira Shea said that thus far the board has not sought to reopen negotiations. "I just don't know if it's realistic to expect that can be done or not," Shea said. "But it's probably a question that more school boards will be asking."
In Burlington, former school board member Michael McGarghan opposes the four-year teacher contract that the board approved last fall. The contract raised salaries this year 4 percent, and calls for subsequent raises of 4.52 percent, 5.9 percent and 4.3 percent in the final year, 2005-2006. Current teacher pay in the district runs from $30,483 to about $59,162.
The contract is too generous given the times, McGarghan said.
"It's hard for some people, including myself, to look at giving people increases well above the rate of inflation when the rest of us are feeling the pinch," said McGarghan.
The Burlington school board has not responded to McGarghan's request to push for renegotiations. People are frustrated with the school board, he said. "They don't have much faith and optimism that the board would do something as courageous as this."
Renegotiation
Reopening a contract requires agreement of both a board and union, and it's doubtful any union would agree to give back promised raises, said Lyman Amsden, Burlington schools superintendent.
Looking back over a decades-long career in Vermont public education, Amsden can't think of an example when a union agreed to reopen a contract to discuss reducing compensation, even when teacher job cuts were a possibility.
"I just haven't seen that kind of motivation where teachers say 'I'm willing to give up some of my money to protect somebody else's job," Amsden said. "We're not like the airline industry that's going to go bankrupt."
Terry Buehner, president of the Burlington Education Association, said the union has not been asked to renegotiate and is not interested in doing so.
"We are in the middle of the compensation range in the county. We teach the longest day in the county," she said. "And we feel that a possibility of opening the contract with the intent of lowering that compensation would not be appropriate."
In Essex, teachers are due a 5 percent raise next year that will bring their salary range from $33,484 to $66,968 annually -- among the highest in the state. The school board asked the local union to reopen negotiations last December in an effort to save money in a district, like many in Chittenden County, where the property tax equalization formula under Act 60 has contributed to big tax increases. The union declined.
"The Association wasn't about to reopen that," said Laurie LaPlant, a special education teacher in Essex. The contract came after long and difficult negotiations and teachers deserve the compensation it guarantees, she said. Teaching is a demanding profession that requires skill development on par with doctors and engineers, she said.
The public should not expect teachers to work for the low wages paid to previous generations of educators who relied on charity to get by, LaPlant said. "It is a calling," she said. "But it's not a calling like you're a nun."
Contact Molly Walsh at 660-1874 or mwalsh@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com