A few schools in Butler County have teachers starting their second school year without a contract.

Butler School District’s agreement for 509 teachers expired in June, while Butler County Vocational-Technical School, with 22 contracted teachers, and South Butler School District, with 169 teachers, had contracts expire in June 2014.

“When a contract expires, they operate under a status quo. They’re just operating under an old contract, an expired contract,” said Tom Breth, solicitor for the vo-tech’s joint operating committee and the South Butler school board. “Their wages remain the same. Their health care remains the same.”

That means teachers cannot receive raises in an expired contract. However, when a new contract is agreed upon, teachers usually receive back pay for a scheduled raise.

At South Butler, negotiators are in the process of appointing a fact finder at the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board to review both sides.

“Once the hearing is done, the fact finder will issue the report addressing issues raised by both of the parties. Then the parties are required to vote on the report,” Breth said. “The hope is that both sides accept the report, it becomes the basis for the new collective bargaining agreement.”

Health care, wages, retirement and post-employment health care are the sticking points at the vo-tech school, Breth said.

Kurt Speicher, vo-tech director, said he’s hopeful a new contract will be laid out soon.

“I think we’re pretty close, Speicher said.

Dale Lumley, Butler superintendent, said health care and wages are the biggest issues there, too. He’s also hopeful to have a new contract in the next few months.

“We’ve been meeting for over a year now. We have not come to a final agreement,” Lumley said. “The key is to finalize salary and benefits. Once that’s done, I think we should be able to move pretty quickly with an agreement.”

The looming state budget hasn’t had any influence on contract discussions, he said.

Overall, the tone of the meetings has remained professional and upbeat, Lumley added. Tom DeGeorge, president of the Butler Education Association, said things have been amicable.

“We met a week ago. We made a little progress. I was pleased with the little progress we made,” DeGeorge said. “We’re meeting in September, so we’re hoping to move forward.”

Brooke Witt and Terrie Holter, teachers’ union representatives with South Butler and the vo-tech, respectively, declined to go into any negotiation specifics. Both work for the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

“We’ll continue to negotiate for a contract. We haven’t reached one yet,” Holter said.

Freeport School District has a contract extension that expires at the end of August.

There will be a board meeting Sept. 2 that will address the soon-to-be-expired contract.

Elsewhere in the county: Slippery Rock School District agreed on a three-year contract last August, which began retroactively in July 2013. Mars and Moniteau have contracts through 2017, Karns City has a contract lasting through 2019 and Seneca Valley has a contract through this school year.