This fall the Butler School Board and the Butler Education Association will begin meetings on a wage contract for the 2014-15 school year.

The reopening of a teacher contract does not happen often.

“I’ve been in the district for 25 years, we had never done this before,” said Michael Strutt, superintendent. “But we never went to the teachers and asked them to open their contract and make concessions on things, which they were willing to do.”

These negotiations have roots in 2009 when the teachers made concessions in their contract. That included higher contributions for health care, and a freeze in supplemental and graduate tuition reimbursements, all of which will save the district more than $2 million during the life of the contract.

In exchange, the education association requested a one-year contract extension, which stretches to the end of the 2014-15 school year.

The two sides will negotiate teachers’ wages just for the 2014-15 school year. However, other items could be negotiated once discussions begin.

“We’d like to start discussions on the salary scale, and then if we have any issues we’d like to discuss with the contract, we can do that, too,” said Tom DeGeorge, president of the education association. “We’re open to listening to what they would like, and hopefully they would be open to listening what we would like.”

School board members Don Pringle and Helene Abramowitz, president and vice president respectively, will represent the board during negotiations. The teachers’ negotiating committee is DeGeorge, Dale Vanlaningham, Dawn Shodi and Kristen Miller.

Teachers receive pay raises each school year on a sliding scale. There are about 520 teachers in the district.

During the 2011-12 school year, teachers had an average of a 4.38 percent raise. In the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years, the percentage raise was about 4.5 percent.

The average starting salary this school year is $42,393. Teachers who have been in the district for 19 years or more will receive an average of $80,178.

The teacher association sent a letter to the school board this summer to initiate the negotiations. DeGeorge said he will probably send a letter to the board in the next few weeks to determine a date to begin meeting.

There also is a possibility they could start meetings to discuss the following contract. Negotiations are not public.

“We want to be able to continue to have an agreement with the school district as we’ve done these past 10 to 12 contracts,” DeGeorge said. “We want to make it fair for everyone, and we’re looking to build on what we already have.”