JEFFERSON TWP — Two years without a teachers’ contract and the South Butler School Board is looking at how the Slippery Rock district so quickly arrived at a new deal.

The South Butler teachers have been working under the terms of the previous contract, which expired June 30, 2014.

During a previous South Butler board meeting, community members requested board members investigate how other districts quickly settle contracts to see if there was a way to finally settle in South Butler.

District solicitor Tom Breth said members of the school board had contacted the Slippery Rock School District to talk about how that district settled its teachers’ contract in a few months. The Slippery Rock teachers’ contract expired June 30, 2016, and a new contract was agreed to in September, said Patricia Kardambikis, assistant superintendent for Slippery Rock.

Breth said the district looked at both the current and previous contracts from the Slippery Rock district.

The previous contract was effective July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2016, including raises in the second two years. Over those three years, the average annual wage increase was 2.42 percent, Breth said.

That previous contract had a health insurance plan with a $300 in-network deductible for single teachers and $600 for a family. Office visit co-pays were $20, and generic prescription co-pays were $5, effective Jan. 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016.

In the new contract for Slippery Rock, the health care insurance plan remains the same until Dec. 31, 2016. Starting Jan. 1, 2017, through June 30, 2020, there is a $400 single-person and an $800 family deductible, with the same co-pays.

The latest contract calls for wage increases each year, averaging 3.15 percent annually over the four years of the contract, Breth said.

As for the South Butler School District, Breth included information about the expired contract, which is what the teachers are working under still today.

The six-year contract ran from 2008 to June 30, 2014, including annual wage increases. The average annual increase was 3.99 percent, Breth said.

The health insurance plan included a $250 single-person and a $500 family deductible. Office visit co-pays cost $15, and generic prescription co-pays are $5.

Breth said the most recent meetings for the board and the union were Sept. 8 and Sept. 27. At the Sept. 8 meeting, the board presented a comprehensive proposal that Breth said, “included significant changes to the board’s prior wage proposal.”

Breth also said the teachers left that session without providing the board with a new proposal.

Brooke Witt, the Pennsylvania State Education Association representative for South Butler, said the union was using a state-appointed neutral mediator, Bob Lavery, to pass information between the parties, which Witt called more productive than passing complete proposals back and forth.

Witt said the new proposal from the board was a step backward.

“The formal proposal the district gave us was very regressive ... it contained stuff we hadn’t talked about in a year,” she said.

That new proposal from the board shows a wage increase of 7.35 percent for the 2016-2017 school year, a $4,300 average salary increase, according to Breth.

The increase is larger than normal because the current proposal calls for employees to move up one step in the salary schedule for each of the three years worked under the expired contract, Breth said.

“What we would do is give an employee step movement for the (three) school years,” Breth said. “If you add that step movement up and let’s say they were making $60,000 in 2013-2014 ... that person would receive $4,400.”

In each of the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years, the proposal would give teachers a 3-percent wage increase, Breth said.

“It is not unusual for the parties to (negotiate) ½-step movement per year or no-step movement per year (for expired years),” Breth said.

As retroactive pay for the employees who worked in the district in the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 school years, the district would contribute $500 for each of those two years into a Flexible Spending Account, an account funded with pre-tax dollars from the employee’s paychecks that can be used toward health care costs.

These proposals were devised to address a number of issues the teachers have expressed, Breth said.

“The reason why the board has structured their wage proposal in this manner is to address at least four contentious issues at the bargaining table,” Breth said. “The school board understands that the teachers want to move one step on the salary schedule for each year of service. Prior proposals did not include that. It has a significant economic consequence to the district as well as to the individual employees.”

Other reasons for this proposal are that it includes a wage increase for the 2016-2017 school year and provides retroactive compensation to help pay for a new health care plan.

“It provides teachers with retroactive compensation back to the expiration of the prior contract,” Breth said. “Finally, it helps teachers to fund their Flexible Spending Accounts under the district’s health care proposal.”

Breth said the board considers the Flexible Spending Account contribution and large wage increase as fair compensation for three years, Breth said.

“Over that three-year time period, that teacher (making $60,000) would get additional compensation of $5,400,” Breth said.

He said the board considers that additional amount as a “fair offer.”

He said 80 percent of the increase would be in the form of salary increase.

However, Witt said, the idea of using a Flexible Spending Account for retroactive pay is out of the ordinary.

“It was a surprise to us,” she said. “The district couldn’t speak to how that would impact the people who aren’t in the district’s insurance. It’s very unconventional, and it certainly doesn’t address our salary needs. The other problem is that’s ‘use it or lose it’ money. If they don’t use it, (that money) goes back to the district. It’s not actually true compensation.”

The board’s proposed health insurance plan saves the district money in the long-run and includes the elimination of co-pays, but that is something the public has voiced concerns about.

The new plan does have an out-of-pocket maximum of $1,000 for a single employee and $2,000 for a family, at which point the insurance would kick in.

But George Zacherl, a spouse of a teacher in the district and president of the Zacherl Insurance Group, told the board that average families will be paying full price for prescriptions and routine office visits, a large immediate cost that could hurt families who do not use the insurance plan often.

“As many people are used to with their health care, if you need a prescription, that prescription was $30,” Zacherl said. “Now, that prescription is subject to the deductible. That $30 prescription may be $200 or $300.”

Witt agreed that co-pays are more manageable cost.

“People are not prepared to spend that kind of money upfront,” she said.

Under the status quo health insurance plan, the average out-of-pocket cost, including co-pays, is about $600 for individuals and $900 for families, Breth said.

“(With the new proposal), once you hit that maximum, you don’t have to pay anything,” Breth said. “There’s some (teachers) that are paying $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 out of pocket right now ... The reason (the health insurance) was structured that way was in an effort to save the district money but also minimize the financial impact, or the potential financial impact, for employees.”

Zacherl conceded that for employees who are paying high out-of-pocket costs under the current health insurance plan, the new proposal is a good idea. But for the average person, it’s not ideal.

Witt said the union has asked that the district eliminate employee premiums if they want to implement a high-deductible plan.