JEFFERSON TWP — A new community group is determined to help end the stalemate between the South Butler School District teachers and the school board.

The South Butler School Action Committee, according to a Friday news release from the group, “is comprised of community members in the district and is designed to create a forum to inspire positive community engagement for the benefit of our students through action.”

The release said the group has issued a call to action to the school board and superintendent regarding the contract negotiations, which are at a standstill after four years of negotiations.

The group issued the following three “action items” to the board and superintendent with the tagline “heal our community!”

Remove the solicitor from all current and future contract negotiations, as the group claims the fees for solicitor and board negotiator Tom Breth over the past four years is $400,000.

The item calls for teachers to meet with school board members and the superintendent instead of negotiators, which the group said has worked for other districts.

Hold contract negotiations at least once per week until a contract has been reached instead of the current once or twice per month.

Provide the teachers with a fair and equitable contract that is retroactive to 2014, when the last contract expired.

The group said South Butler is a high-performing district but its teachers are among the lowest paid in the area.

The two sides last met for a negotiating session Feb. 8. Brooke Witt, the teachers' negotiator, said then that she could not see any further actions that can be taken.

Witt said that a strike date had been selected, but she did not divulge that date.

Heather Helsel of the South Butler School Action Committee said the group also will tackle other issues, but the teacher contract negotiations are the most pressing right now.

She said the people she talks to are mainly in support of the teachers and she feels the other side is not against teachers.

“The biggest issue we've heard is about taxes (increasing) and not so much about hating teachers,” Helsel said. “They just don't want their taxes to go up.”

The goal of the call to action sent to the school board and superintendent, Helsel said, is to speed up an agreement between the teachers and school board.

She said while the teachers have been working for four years without a contract, their commitment to the students has remained high and student achievements have continued.

“Our teachers are still giving and it's time we compensate them back to 2014 when the last contract ended,” Helsel said.

She said the group wants to give the school board time to respond, so they will likely attend the school board meeting March 14.

“We want the community's voices in the schools,” Helsel said.

She said anyone in the district is welcome to join the group.

Breth said Tuesday that while he has not added up the costs for contract negotiation services, he is certain the number is not $400,000.

He said his firm, Dillon McCandless King Coulter and Graham, provides a number of services to the district.

Included in those services, Breth said, was twice investigating a member of the teachers union for allegedly abusing sick days and taking the appropriate action and investigating another member for allegedly stealing money from the student activity account.

Breth said he engaged in two fact-finding reports, which the school board accepted and the teachers rejected.

The first report was presented to the two sides in October 2015.

“The negotiations would have ended at that point (if teachers would have accepted the report),” Breth said.

He said the teachers rejected the second fact-finding report in August.

“We have twice voted to approve a new collective bargaining agreement and the teachers have rejected it each time,” Breth said. “My fees are directly connected to their unwillingness to compromise.”

He went on to say the teachers may be costing the district even more.

“The district has also spent $1 million maintaining status quo health insurance (since the last contract expired),” Breth said.

He said both sides are proposing health care changes, and any change requires lead time to explain the changes, provide new insurance cards, fill out and sign paperwork and respond to questions.

The window of opportunity to provide that lead time so that the changes kick in at the beginning of the next school year is from now until mid-May, Breth said.

He hopes the teachers will accept the board's proposal so the health care changes can go smoothly and begin at the start of the 2018-19 school year, and so a contract can be signed.

“The board is doing everything it can do to get a deal done,” Breth said. “What it won't do is enter into a financially irresponsible deal that requires tax increases for the next 'X' number of years.”

Neither Witt nor Helsel responded to calls from the Eagle Tuesday.