If the latest contract offer from the SenecaValley teachers union were being graded, it would receive an A for creativity but it would earn a D for honesty.

Granted, each side in the ongoing Seneca Valley labor dispute tends to put its own spin on information, but for the teachers union negotiator to imply that his latest proposal matched the board's longstanding offer of 4 percent annual increases is inaccurate — and dishonest.

The union's latest offer was a two-year plan with 4 percent annual raises, but it also would take any payroll savings the district would see — from the retirement of higher-paid teachers being replaced by less-experienced, lower-paid teachers — and distribute the "attritional savings" to the remaining teachers.

The board voted unanimously to reject the offer at Monday night's meeting.

To characterize such a deal as compatible with the district's 4 percent offer is disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst.

It is a clever approach to the stalemate, one that would put more money into teachers' paychecks while technically limiting the increase in the district's payroll to the 4 percent annual increase that has been on the table since August.

But as routine teacher retirements would occur, the union's plan would take those payroll savings and hand them over to teachers in the form of higher wages.

For example, when a top-level teacher who is paid $70,000 retires and is replaced by a less-experienced, lower-step teacher at a $40,000 salary, there is a $30,000 savings in payroll expenses. The union's plan would take those savings and add them to existing payroll expenses.

But a reduction in payroll that comes about from retirements is something that any organization, from school districts to large corporations, view as a natural fluctuation in one category of operating expenses. It is the employer's expenses that are being reduced by retirements; the money saved belongs to the employer, not the employees.

Even factoring in the tendency of both sides in this increasingly bitter dispute to spin information to their benefit, the union's characterization of its "4 percent deal" is troubling. It's wrong to characterize that proposal as matching the board's offer of 4 percent salary increases.

The actual cost of this creative offer is difficult to accurately predict, because it depends on how many and which teachers retire — or leave the district for other reasons — in any given year and what their replacements are paid. Negotiators for the board calculated that such a proposal would amount to a 6.1 percent or 6.3 percent wage increase for teachers. Even without the ability to know precisely what such an offer that distributes so-called attritional savings to teachers would cost, it clearly results in more than 4 percent annual raises. Again, to characterize it as a 4 percent offer is wrong, and dishonest.

Defending his offer, union negotiator Patrick Andrekovich said, "At least it would have the kids back in the classrooms and there would not be another strike this school year." But so would a deal with 7 percent annual raises, or 10 percent annual raises, for that matter.

This week, the public has seen that some offers do not cost what they are portrayed as costing. Trying to extract extra money for teachers in such a manner has not improved communication and trust.

This latest proposal did not bring the two sides closer, it only served to raise suspicions. No doubt, it will cause taxpayers to demand to see the fine print of all future proposals.