The South Butler School District and South Butler County Education Association are still negotiating a new teachers’ contract without much progress.

The two organizations came to an agreement on teacher transfers, but remain at a stalemate on matters including health care, salaries and open houses.

Both sides insist that they are the ones willing to negotiate, while the other remains stubborn.

School board solicitor Tom Breth released what he called a “tentative agreement” with the SBCEA, and said the district is waiting for the SBCEA to sign off on it.

“It’s something the board would sign off on,” Breth said. “If the teachers suggest they’ll agree to this, the board will agree to it. But we can’t get them to agree to it.”

Brooke Witt, Pennsylvania State Education Association representative, said the document the district is calling a tentative agreement is a “counter proposal.” She also said the SBCEA has been the one willing to make concessions, not the district.

“I don’t believe that they’ve made a single concession throughout this negotiation,” she said. “We as the association are willing to go to a health-care plan that will have more costs than the current plan. That’s a concession by the association. The association has also moved significantly under their salary proposal while the district has continually gone backward.”

The district proposed two health care plans to the SBCEA at a negotiation meeting this month.

One was a consumer driven plan with a $2,000 individual deductible and $4,000 family deductible.

Under this plan, the district would be responsible for 50 percent of the out-of-pocket costs before the deductible was reached.

Another was a qualified high deductible plan that Breth said the SBCEA had asked for. It contains a health savings account and a $1,300 individual deductible and $2,600 family deductible.

It also contains no monthly premium contributions from the teachers.