Clay Today staff
ORANGE PARK – The Clay County teachers union has formally ratified a proposed contract that will go before the School Board later this month.
More than 90 percent of the 1,675 teachers voting approved the new contract, according to information emailed to Clay County Education Association members. The 2,500-member union represents both CCEA members and non-members on salary and benefits.
The School Board will meet at 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 11, at Fleming Island High School’s teacher training center to vote on the tentative contract, which came in January after more than eight months of negotiations that grew more contentious as they continued.
After the union declared an impasse in December, a federal mediator was assigned to work with the two sides. The tentative agreement was reached during the first meeting with the mediator.
Under the agreement, teachers will receive their “step” pay increase, which give them annual credit for years of experience and their education level.
If affirmed, teachers would begin receiving their additional pay later this month, but the pay would not be retroactive to when the old contract expired last summer.
Concerns about continued cuts in state funding impacted the contract talks. Superintendent Ben Wortham and School Board members frequently said during board meetings that they feared the state would make severe cuts similar to last spring when the district was forced to cut more than 400 positions and prepare for $45 million in budget cuts.
State officials later revised their budget figures, allowing the district to fill nearly all the eliminated positions and reduce the budget cuts to about $22 million.
Deputy Superintendent Denise Adams previously said the district became more optimistic this fall that severe cuts won’t occur. Concerns the district would lose more funding if student enrollment dropped as it did the previous year also did not materialize. In fact the 2009-10 school year enrollment is up slightly over projections, she said.
The School Board will also vote Feb. 11 on a proposed contract ratified by the Clay Education Staff Professionals Association which represents bus drivers, secretarial workers and custodians.
The tentative agreement would grant ESPs one year of experience on their already negotiated salary schedule beginning in mid March, but would not be retroactive to the first of the school year. An additional step will be added to the salary schedule for ESPs who are already at the top of the schedule.
February 9th 2010 - 2:34PM