JEFFERSON TWP — Contract talks between South Butler School District and its teachers union continue to deteriorate, with the union saying the latest bargaining session ended in less than two hours and did not include any discussion of major economic issues.

In a news release Wednesday the union, the South Butler County Education Association, said its negotiation team was “baffled” by what it said was the district's “continued unwillingness to engage in meaningful negotiations.”

Union and district negotiators met Tuesday night for their latest bargaining session, but once again failed to achieve virtually anything, according to both sides.

Teachers say the district floated four informal proposals at the meeting, but none of them addressed the two major economic issues — salaries and health care.

The union said it responded to the district's offers with four counterproposals, but the district refused to respond to those offers and instead requested the union present a proposal on wages and health care. That's a request union negotiators refused, saying that the district still hadn't responded to their last economic proposal, which was floated at a bargaining session on May 1.

District solicitor Tom Breth pushed back hard on that characterization of the session, saying the district's informal proposals covered issues like supplemental wages, tuition reimbursement, the school day and teachers' obligations for district open house events. Breth said that the district had responded to the union's informal May 1 economic offer, and criticized union negotiators for failing to fully engage during the bargaining sessions. He said the union eschews substantive discussion for personal attacks both in public and during the bargaining sessions.

“The teachers keep wanting to personally attack the board members. That is not going to get this resolved,” Breth said. “Stop the personal attacks, start talking about the issues at the bargaining table.”

Tuesday's meeting represented one of the final opportunities for the two sides to negotiate before the end of May — a deadline district officials set for working out a new agreement on health care. The district's latest proposal on wages and health care is on the table until that deadline, Breth said, but will be pulled and altered after it passes.

Union representative Brooke Witt has criticized the district's economic proposal as not doing enough for teachers' salaries going forward and doing a poor job of setting retroactive compensation amounts for the years teachers worked without a contract.

Ian Babb, president of the SBCEA, said in a statement Wednesday that the negotiations stalemate has left the union's bargaining team feeling as if the district is trying to antagonize teachers into a work stoppage.

“We have tried to settle this contract without a strike, but the district isn't giving us any choice if they won't negotiate fairly with us,” said Babb.

Witt said teachers in the district took a strike authorization vote in May of last year, meaning that the union's six-teacher negotiations team has the power to call a strike as it sees fit. She said it was unclear if such a move was imminent, but that “it's going to happen sooner or later if we can't get a contract.”

The district has seen four teacher strikes in the last six contract negotiations, Witt said. She called the district the most problematic she's ever dealt with in seven years of helping teachers unions negotiate contracts.

“It certainly is the worst culture that I've seen with respect to how negotiations proceed,” Witt said. “I feel the board has a completely unrealistic expectation and position,” on the contract.

The two sides have been at loggerheads since the union's previous contract expired on June 20, 2014.

District officials accuse the union, which represents 167 South Butler School District teachers, of refusing to work toward consensus on major economic issues like changes to the district's health care plan and a wage schedule that would dictate teachers' compensation over the life of a new contract.

Union negotiators, in turn, accuse the district of sidetracking negotiations by staking out contentious positions on sidebar issues, being disingenuous about how the proposed wage schedules would affect teacher salaries, and using Web updates on the negotiations to try and turn public sentiment against the union.

Breth said that the district provided the union with three potential meeting dates next week, in advance of the May 31 deadline.