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School district, teachers reach bargaining agreement

Date: 6/28/2011

June 27, 2011

By Chris Maza

Reminder Assistant Editor

LONGMEADOW — A collective bargaining agreement has been struck between the town and school teachers, which includes a 1 percent pay increase for teachers, starting June 1.

Superintendent Marie Doyle told Reminder Publications that with the negotiations now behind them, administration and staff could now focus on the district’s motto of keeping eyes on the child.

“By settling this contract, teachers can do what’s most important, which is focus on teaching and learning,” she said. “When we are involved in negotiations, people are distracted by meetings that run late into the day and night, which take them away from their primary responsibility of teaching. So we’re delighted to have the contract settled.”

Doyle said that she has been especially impressed with how willing the teachers were to come to the table and negotiate terms with the well-being of the town in mind.

“I think if you compare what Longmeadow teachers have done with other districts near us, Longmeadow teachers have been very gracious in their concessions,” she said. “For example, Hampden-Wilbraham [Regional School District], which we consider our peer, in FY11 [fiscal year 2011] they got a 3 percent raise, in FY12, they’re getting 2.75 and in FY13 they’re getting 3 percent.

“So if you look at those numbers and realize that Longmeadow teachers took zero, zero, one, I think you’ll see how much our teachers try to support the town,” she continued.

In light of this agreement, a Special Town Meeting took place on June 22 to decide if and how the town would transfer the extra funds needed to finance the increases.

The original warrant article asked the town to transfer $350,000 from the Operating Stabilization Fund to a Salary Settlement Account, but the Finance Committee took issue with that article.

Finance Committee Chairman Peter Greenberg proposed that the article be amended and that the sum of $230,000 — the actual amount needed to fund the contract increases — be borrowed against free cash instead of taken from the Operating Stabilization Fund.

“The main motion takes money out of the Operating Stabilization Fund to fund a salary increase,” he said. “It’s been the position of the finance committee not to tap into the stabilization fund to pay salaries. It’s more to be put aside for emergencies.”

Greenberg added that should a lump sum of money be simply set aside in an account in anticipation of future settlements, it takes an element of town government out of the process.

“If you take the money and you put it into a fund so you can tap into it when needed, it disallows town meeting, which is our legislative body, to vote on any kind of contract,” he explained. “They can settle with somebody and the town can’t use their vote to approve it or to deny it. I think that goes against the way our town government is set up.”

With the support of the School Committee, the amendment motion was approved by a quorum of slightly more than 50 voters. Shortly after, a majority vote approved the funding of the contracts.

“I really appreciate the support of the town in funding this agreement because I think it raises morale,” Doyle said. “Teachers feel very supported, as do the rest of the staff, because the town has come out and voted for this. I believe morale will be high and teachers will be appreciative of the vote.”



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