JEFFERSON TWP — The South Butler School Board and its teachers union will once again try to agree to a new contract — this time through nonbinding arbitration scheduled May 21.

District solicitor Tom Breth said the panel will be made up of attorney Tom King representing the school board, UniServ representative Pat Andrekovich for the teachers and Pittsburgh attorney David Breen, who is a state-certified arbitrator.

The panel will hear each side's case and consider their final, best offers or the two previous fact-finding reports to make a decision on a fair contract for both sides that is based on the top issues causing the stalemate, Breth said.

At least two of the three arbitrators on the panel must agree on a decision within 20 days, and the school board and teachers have 10 days to vote on the decision, Breth said.

He expects the school board to vote at its June 13 meeting.

If both sides accept the decision, a new contract will be formed and signed. If either the teachers or school board reject the arbitration decision, the two sides will return to negotiations.

Breth said the district has not modified its last offer, which was presented to teachers in March.

However, most issues in the March agreement included a stipulation that the teachers union must agree to a tentative contract by March 15 or the offer or portions of it would be withdrawn.

Since that deadline has passed, the school board proposal to be presented to the arbitration panel looks different from the March 13 proposal.

Brooke Witt, the UniServ negotiator for the teachers union, would not detail the modifications to the teachers' March proposal, but the proposal appeared on the school district's website.

“Hopefully this process will be successful,” Witt said of the May 21 arbitration. “We're going to go present our case and hopefully the arbitrator will put a decision out that both parties will accept.”

Salary

The current proposal from the school system does not include retroactive pay or increases, or retroactive movement up the “salary steps” included in the March 13 offer.

It does include $1,900 payments per teacher per full school year, retroactive to July 1, 2014, that totals $1.16 million for the district and averages about $7,000 per teacher. The offer also includes an 8.5 percent pay increase in the next school year plus 3.5 percent increases for the following two years, movement of one salary step for each teacher for the next three years. The board's proposal includes a seven-year contract from 2014-15 through 2020-21.

The teachers' proposal requests movement up the salary levels — which are based on years of service — retroactively for 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17, with 2016-17 including a payment of $1,500 added to the highest step only.

An annual 3.5 percent increase is requested from 2017-18 to 2021-22, and “appropriate increases” for the starting teacher's salary.

Health care

The arbitration proposal's offers have not changed from the March proposal, which moves teachers to a consumer-driven health plan for the remainder of the contract, providing teachers with a health reimbursement arrangement and flexible spending account, a 50-50 split between the district and a teacher of medical bills incurred before the teacher's deductible is met, a single deductible of $1,250 for single teachers and $2,500 for all other coverage levels, $70 and $80 monthly premiums for those groups, which would be bumped up $10 per month beginning next year.

The teachers' proposal asks for a health care deductible of $500 for individual teachers and $1,000 for all other health care levels.

The teachers agree to a $10 increase in the current deductible, the amount of which was not specified in the proposal.

They also ask for unspecified modifications to the PPO health care plan, which the proposal said would save the district more than $196,000 on the 2017-18 rates.

Early retirement incentives

Because the March 15 deadline has passed, some health care coverage is being offered for teachers who retired before that date, but no early retirement would be offered in the remainder of the contract.

The teachers' proposal did not include an item for early retirement incentives.

Sick leave

Before the March 15 deadline, the board offered family illness leave in which teachers could use five sick days to care for an immediate family member. Since the deadline has passed, the board will object to the insertion of family sick leave into the bargaining process for four years.

The teachers' proposal did not include an item for sick leave.

Contract term

Breth said both sides recently talked about a seven-year contract, which would be retroactive to the 2014-15 school year and be in effect through the 2020-21 school year, but the teachers are now proposing an eight-year budget.

The teachers' proposal indeed requests an eight-year contract term from 2014-15 to 2021-22, instead of seven years ending in the 2020-21 school year.

Tentative agreements

The parties have signed tentative agreements to the issues of school dismissal and delays, a printing segment of the “rights and privileges” section of the contract, and issues such as transfers and open houses.

The teachers were on strike from March 15 until April 3, when the state Department of Education sent them back to the classroom so students could receive their 180 days of instruction before June 15.