News

No agreement in the school's negotiations

By Heather Milbrath

06/18/2013

Members of the Bottineau School board met with representatives from the Bottineau Education Association on Wednesday, June 12, to discuss teacher contracts.

Those present from the school board included Mark Pewe, Matt Johnson and Kimberlee Bernstein. Representatives from the BEA were Rodney Schmidt and Elaine Bittle.

The groups began the meeting agreeing on a compensation amount for two teachers involved in extracurricular activities. Both sides quickly agreed on 3.070 percent compensation for the teachers who supervise the Student Council and the Science Club.

The two groups had a tough time coming to an agreement on salaries and benefits. The board’s first offer was a $1,150 salary increase the first year, a $1,500 increase the second year, the district covering all of the Blue Cross Blue Shield benefits and two percent of the Teacher’s Fund For Retirement (TFFR), with the teachers paying the remaining two percent.

The TFFR is a fund run by the North Dakota government, and is a “qualified defined benefit public pension plan”, according to the TFFR website. The funding for this fund comes from member and employer contributions, as well as investment earnings.

In 2010, salary contribution rates for TFFR were a total of 16.5 percent, and are now at 20.5 percent.

These rates will be increasing to 24.5 percent in 2014. Due to this increase, the board felt the teachers should have some input into their retirement: the BEA strongly disagreed.

The BEA had major issues with the district not covering all of the TFFR and rejected their first offer. The BEA came back with an offer of a base salary of $40,000, all Blue Cross Blue Shield covered, and all TFFR covered. The current base salary for the Bottineau district is $31,850.

The board rejected this offer. Both sides went back and forth with two more offers each, but were not able to come to an agreement, mostly due to the TFFR coverage. Due to their inability to settle, the school board decided to reconvene again on Friday, June 14.

When the board reconvened again on Friday night, they began by discussing the BEA’s third offer, which was a $2,000 pay increase the first year, a $2,000 pay increase the second year, TFFR paid on both sides and full health insurance coverage. The board eventually rejected this offer.

Again, the main issue Friday night was how much of the TFFR should by paid by the district.

Because both groups were so firm on their offers, they agreed to go to impasse.

According to the North Dakota Century Code, an impasse exists when two stipulations are met: “after a reasonable period of negotiation, an agreement has not been formulated and a dispute exists” and “the board of a school district and the representative organization both agree that an impasse exists”.

Since both sides agreed an impasse exists, the school board and the BEA now move into the mediation process. The board and the BEA jointly select a mediator (or team of mediators) and agree to a distribution of the cost.

From this point, both sides are able to gather up their facts and give testimony to the mediators. The mediators then consider the testimony and facts given by both sides and give a recommendation.

The school board has the option to either accept this offer, or give one final offer.

An impasse between the Bottineau School Board and the BEA has not occurred in more than ten years.