A dedicated, hard-working faculty is essential to any school district. It’s also imperative that a community pay its teachers a competitive rate.

The Butler School District’s new three-year contract reflects faith in this standard belief, with 3 percent pay increases each year for the 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18 school years for the district’s 508 teachers.

The current average salary for Butler’s teachers is $59,829. In the final year of the contract, the average salary will be $65,382.

That’s above the state median of $56,626, according to Salary.com, an online listing of careers and salaries.

The new contracts’s pay raises keep pace with Pennsylvania’s highest-paying school districts, clustered around Philadelphia, according to the Salary.com data.

Closer to home, the Erie School District’s median salary is $53,353; Pittsburgh’s is $54,462; and Youngstown, Ohio’s is $53,624. Butler pays its teachers more than any of the region’s urban centers.

It could be argued the Butler district’s wages are too high, or too low. Let’s leave that argument for another day.

Given the unique circumstances right now in the district and statewide, Butler School Board will be challenged foremost not to raise local property taxes — only, it will be a new board making the 2016-17 budget next spring and incorporating the wage increases into the new budget.

Monday’s board meeting was the final regular meeting for the board before the newly elected members take over in December.

Tag. You’re it.

Not to worry, district officials say. The contract also requires teachers to pay more for their own health care with their monthly premium increasing by $20, deductibles increasing over the life of the contract and increased co-pays for specialists and emergency room treatment.

Business manager Debbie Brandstetter said the district will save $1 million in health care costs and $700,000 in retirement costs over three years. Additionally, The district anticipates a 1 percent increase in basic education subsidies (another $853,000) and another $467,000 in property taxes when the new VA Butler Healthcare center goes on the tax rolls in 2017.

That all sounds good. Just remember that, just like salaries, health care and pension costs seem to rise constantly.

The new teachers contract doubles down on the incoming board members, who rode to victory on a campaign that opposed nearly every facet of the consolidation plan launched last spring despite their opposition.

They will be tasked with continuing or modifying the ongoing consolidation, which closed five elementary schools; and now, for their first budget, they will have to incorporate the pay raises and other changes dictated by the new teachers contract.

And for an electorate that was told the consolidation would cut costs and save money, another property tax increase is completely out of the question.