Now that the Oak Harbor School District has settled its budget for the current school year, the attention turns to the teacher union’s request for salary enhancements.

Oak Harbor teachers aren’t preparing to go on strike like their counterparts in some other districts, but contract negotiations with the school district have broken down over the issue of supplemental pay.

While the teachers’ contract is not up for renewal until 2005, each year it can be “reopened” to be renegotiated on certain points. This year’s reopener is the issue of “time responsibility and incentive pay,” given for supplemental days of work beyond the 182 day work year.

The teachers are asking for four additional days, while the district is saying they are only willing to give extra pay for actual extra work.

Peter Szalai, president of the Oak Harbor Education Association, said teachers work far more days than they are paid for now.

“People have been working for weeks in their classrooms,” he said, as an example of hours worked without pay. “To try to wring more work out of us — we won’t agree to that.”

Both sides stay positive

Still, both sides say they are approaching the negotiations with a positive attitude.

“I think both the district and association are working hard to achieve a positive outcome,” David Peterson, assistant superintendent, said.

The first step in the negotiation process, which started in May, is to share the interests of each side. The school district’s number one priority is to improve student learning, Peterson said. He also noted that the “vast majority” of district funds go to staff, and that increasing teacher compensation would likely mean cuts in other areas.

“We’re not being unreasonable in our bargaining goals for our members, especially since compensation is a critical issue,” Szalai said earlier.

Oak Harbor teachers currently receive eight days of supplemental pay, which is one of the lowest of districts of comparable size. For example, a first year teacher in Monroe earns $3,860 in supplemental pay, or 13.6 percent of their salary. In Oak Harbor that number is $1,268, or 4.4 percent of their salary. Teachers in Bremerton school district, another “Navy town” district, receive slightly less than Oak Harbor teachers, at $1,245.

The district that the teachers’ association is looking to as their standard is Stanwood-Camano, which pays teachers for 12 supplemental days this school year, 15 in 2004-2005, and 18 in 2005-2006.

Szalai said this increase would put Oak Harbor in the “average” category, although the number is higher than their goal.

“Is the district saying that its teachers are not worth at least pay that is average to other teachers in other districts?” Szalai said. He estimated that each additional supplemental day would cost the district about $115,000. Four extra days would total $460,000 in this school year.

State freeze cuts pay

Compensation is a critical issue in all districts, given that the state has frozen cost-of-living allowances for all but teachers in the first seven years of their careers. With no cost of living increase, and rising health insurance costs, teachers over that mark are actually looking at a pay reduction, Szalai pointed out. And, with supplemental days calculated as a percentage of salary, no salary increase means no supplemental pay increase.

The teachers’ union was negotiating with the school district even as the school board was wrestling with the 2003-2004 school year budget. The board was able to balance the budget and put a healthy amount of money in the general fund balance, thanks in large part to a substantial Federal Impact Aid payment. Szalai said the union was not entirely happy with the way the school board prioritized what to fund and what not to fund.

He cited the funding of non-teaching positions, the police officer at the high school and the amount put into the fund balance as areas of concern. The allotment of capital projects funds is also an issue, as Szalai said it seems the school district is putting more emphasis on funding capital projects than compensating teachers.

Community help sought

“The school district has to meet the needs of teachers,” Szalai said. “It’s unfair to shift the burden of capital projects to teachers.”

He also stressed it’s time for the community to step up to the plate and support Oak Harbor schools.

“The community has a responsibility to the schools,” he said, suggesting school district voters could do this by supporting a series of small capital project levies, or partnering with schools in other ways.

Szalai said a federal mediator will now be called in, and talks should resume in the next couple of weeks.

“We’d like to settle,” he said. “We want to be in a collaborative mode.”

You can reach News-Times reporter Marcie Miller at mmiller@whidbeynewstimes.com or call 675-6611