Tyngsboro school panel, teachers union face May 31 mitigation deadline

TYNGSBORO -- As contract negotiations between the School Committee and the teachers' union continue, a May 31 deadline is looming before a mitigation package incentive expires for unions that agree to pay 30 percent for health-insurance premiums.

Superintendent of Schools Don Ciampa described the deadline as the sand in the hourglass.

"It's a precarious timeline we're walking," Ciampa said at a School Committee meeting earlier this month.

The School Committee, on Ciampa's recommendation, took $108,400 out of its proposed fiscal 2013 budget to put into a charge-back account to pay health-insurance premiums for teachers paying 25 percent of their health-insurance costs in case the union and the committee do not reach an agreement by May 31.

The $108,400 is coming out of the $235,000 budgeted for undistributed salaries, which are the funds set aside for negotiating all union and non-union employee contracts across the district.

Reducing those funds limits the ability of the School Committee to negotiate contracts.

The mitigation package is part of the work of a townwide Insurance Committee tasked with making significant changes to the town's liability and building insurance and employee health-insurance benefits.

If the union reaches a collective-bargaining agreement, the town is offering a flexible-spending account, a one-time buyout for employees who remove themselves from the town's health-insurance benefits of $3,000 for

those who were on the family plan and $1,500 for employees on the single plan and off-sets for the first three years.

Without an agreement by May 31, those incentives will not be available.

School Committee member Jeffrey Hunt, who served on the Insurance Committee, expressed his frustration that the union has not agreed to the health-insurance package.

"It's frustrating not being part of the Negotiations Committee to see that the town has come forward with a great plan and that the union is not recognizing the benefits of that work and also the benefits to their people in that union," said Hunt. "Without getting into specifics, the School Committee has also offered a fairly good compensation package, a three-year contract when you look at it relative to surrounding communities and what has already been agreed to this year and previous years in surrounding communities."

School Committee member Burt Buchman, chair of the Negotiations Committee, said tentative agreements have been reached with the secretaries and custodians unions and a "handshake" agreement with the paraprofessionals union agreeing to the 30 percent payment of health-insurance premiums.

Town Treasurer Kerry Colburn-Dion said all of the town's unions have agreed to pay 30 percent of health-insurance premiums except the clerical union.

It's not that the clerical union has not agreed to pay 30 percent of health-insurance premiums, but it has not agreed to a complete compensation package, said Colburn-Dion.

The teachers' union contract expired Aug. 31.

Union president Cheryl Laforge could not be reached for comment.

The School Committee filed for mediation with the state Department of Labor Relations in late fall after meeting about half a dozen times beginning last summer, said Buchman.

"Prior to filing back in the fall it just got to the point where the only thing we had agreed on was changing 'Department of Education' to the 'Department of Elementary and Secondary Education' in the contract," said Buchman. "We were really very far apart."

The union signed a letter of agreement on the health-insurance plan-design changes, said Buchman, but the School Committee and the union must negotiate the rate at which employees will pay.

Buchman, who has negotiated contracts for the School Committee for six of the last eight years, said he is always hopeful, but the town has to plan as if they will not come to an agreement before May 31.

"We're trying to be very realistic in what we're presenting to the teachers," he said. "Right now, we are very far apart."

Buchman did say the School Committee is not interested in taking away step increases.

The final 2013 budget the School Committee voted on last week includes a reduction of current or proposed 4.9 full-time equivalent positions.

Follow Sarah Favot @sarahfavot.

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