RC school board, union ratify two year contract

A new contract with the Rogers City Educators? Association was ratified Monday at the conclusion of a special meeting of the Rogers City Area Schools Board of Education. The 4-3 vote by the board followed ratification by the union earlier in the day. Voting against the contract were board members Allan Smolinski, Tim Horn, and Lee Gapczynski. The two-year deal provides two percent increases for the rest of 2006-07, as well as next year. While the teachers receive raises, the school board will realize a savings of $21,000 a year with the union agreeing to a $10/$10 drug card for the second year of the contract. They will continue having a $5/$10 drug card available until the end of the first year. ?The bottom line is that it saves us $50 per month, per person,? said superintendent Paul Mancine. ?So, there was savings.? In the union?s response, bargaining chair Vicki Bruder said, ?Even though the teachers had been without a contract since August 2006, they continued to dedicate themselves to their students and school. After several negotiating sessions and a few mediation sessions, the teachers feel the recently ratified contract is a reasonable settlement.?

AS PART of the new contract, teachers and the board established the school calendar for the next three years to allow parents and teachers the ability to plan ahead for vacations, even if a new contract cannot be reached before the beginning of the 2008-09 sch

ool year. There had been ongoing negotiations over the last several months between the board and union representatives. The last contract expired in August 2006. According to Mancine, the history of contract talks between the board and the union can be attributed to some rough waters that had to be negotiated before a final deal could be done. ?Basically, we had to do something to contain health care costs,? said Mancine. ?Our friends in the union thought that they had done that. They were the first kids on the block to have the PPO. When I was in Atlanta I said ?Hey, those guys did it, you need to do that here.? ?

THE UNION?S opinion was the district had benefited from the program, but the board wanted more, said Mancine. ?Yes, the board wanted them to do more. The reality is, people are having to do more.? Health insurance benefits established in the new contract will carry over into 2008-09 if the cost of health insurance doesn?t rise more than 7.5 percent from the 2007-08 school year to the 2008-09 school year. ?If those rates are greater than 7.5, that automatically flags (the deal) and is subject to negotiations,? said Mancine. ?If it is 7.5 or less we agreed to roll that same health care over for one more year.? The final changes and provisions were gone over during a closed session of the board at their last regular meeting in February. The union ratified the contract Tuesday afternoon at 3 p.m.