News

Negotiations fail and head to impasse

By Heather Milbrath

07/09/2013

The Bottineau Education Association (BEA) and the Bottineau School Board met Tuesday, July 2, to discuss teacher contracts one final time.

Representing the school board was Matt Johnson, Mark Pewe and Kimberly Bernstein. Rodney Schmidt and Dana Alinder represented the BEA.
At the start of the meeting, both sides expressed their desire to avoid impasse. It was also acknowledged by both the BEA and the school board that each side was giving their final offers.
According to Pewe, head negotiator of the Bottineau School Board, the school board presented the BEA with a fair final offer.

“The board presented what it thought was a very fair offer of $1,650 added to base salaries to the 2013-14 school year (a 5.2 percent increase to the base), and a $2,450 added to base salaries to the 2014-15 school year (a 7.3 percent increase to the base); in addition to paying 22.5 percent of gross salaries into the Teachers Fund for Retirement (TFFR),” Pewe said.

The BEA did not like the school board offer because the Board was still not willing to cover all of the TFFR. A district can chose to cover none, some, or all of the teacher’s share of TFFR. In past years, the school board has covered the entire share of teachers’ TFFR. Due to recent legislation, the TFFR percentages will be increasing in the 2014-15 school year, which in turn would cost the district more to continue to cover all of the teachers’ share.

Alinder told the board that the TFFR was something the BEA felt very strongly about. The BEA also felt that by not covering all of the TFFR, the teachers would be losing full benefits they once had. The BEA felt so strongly about the TFFR coverage, that they were willing to take a lower pay increase to offset the TFFR.    

The board then expressed to the BEA that unless the salary increases were reduced substantially, the board stood with their final offer. Both sides had a very different view of what a fair pay increase would be, and decided they were officially at impasse.

Pewe said that the reason the board felt the teachers should pay the additional 2 percent of the TFFR was because the certified staff needs to contribute to their own retirement.

“Although we are disappointed that we couldn’t reach an agreement, we feel the offer was in line with other comparable districts as well as commensurate with our budget at this point in time,” Pewe said. “We look forward to presenting the districts position at the upcoming hearing.”

A hearing date has not been set at this time.