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School officials say lack of 'wiggle room' might simplify contract talks

Tuesday, August 29, 2006 • BY JOHN MOONEY • Star-Ledger Staff

The financial plight facing many New Jersey school districts continues to temper teacher contract talks this year, according to those on both sides of the bargaining table.

The average raise this year has been about 4.65 percent, according to the state's school boards association, a figure that is down slightly from last year.

"It's a tough year, no doubt about it," said Mike Yaple, a spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association. "There's not much wiggle room."

More than 100 contracts remain unsettled on the eve of the new school year, but officials said there is no threat of a strike in any district.

And at this rate, teachers are still winning salary raises that outpace inflation. The average teacher salary last year was $59,395, about 3 percent higher than the year before.

For the first time, starting pay also has topped $50,000 in a district. Westfield will pay a first-year teacher with a bachelor's degree $51,453 this year. Summit will surpass the mark next year. The statewide average for starting teachers is about $41,900, up nearly 4 percent.

Teacher salaries have jumped dramatically in the past 20 years, after the state imposed an $18,500 minimum on teacher salaries in 1985. Throughout the next decade, salary raises far outpaced inflation, hitting a high of more than 9 percent in 1990.

"These are low settlement rates compared to those of a decade ago," said Steve Baker, a spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association, the teachers union. "It reflects the economic reality, and we take the position that they are not out of line."

So far, the tighter market this year hasn't led to much labor unrest.

Talks between East Rutherford and its teachers are maybe the state's most contentious battle, with the two sides engaged in what is called a "super-conciliation" process.

At issue are both salaries and a proposed provision from the district that would limit health benefits for new teachers' families, according to the union. The district's salary offer averages just over 4 percent.

"The below-average salary offer combined with the health care proposal has just made it unacceptable," said Baker of the NJEA.

A half-dozen other districts are working with state fact-finders to try to break their impasses, including High Bridge, Lambertville and Plainfield. Another 21 are in the first stage of mediation.

But others so far have been amenable, and the leader of one Somerset County district about to begin contract talks said the state's fiscal crisis may actually help bring the sides together.

"It's not like we're the only ones talking about (the funding problems) anymore," Warren Township Superintendent James Crisfield. "The union can't help but be cognizant of it, too, and to that end, we might be on the same page."

North Haledon and its 58-member union settled this summer after state mediation, agreeing to salary raises close to the state average, according to Kitty Sausa, the union's president.

Sausa would not disclose the details until the agreement is ratified by her members, but in her two decades of negotiating, she said, there is certainly a different climate these days.

"The boards are coming in saying they have to think of the community and don't have the money," she said. "And we try to be fair and not too aggressive. We know what's going on out there."

The state's biggest district, Newark, is beginning talks today with its teachers on the first contract since the union won one of the state's most generous deals.

Three years ago, the state-run district and the Newark Teachers Union agreed to a contract that awarded raises of more than 5 percent, bringing the average teacher's pay to about $75,000 last year. This year, the union's president, Joseph Del Grosso, said he isn't looking for raises quite as high for his 5,000 members, but does not want to go below the state's norm, either.

"We understand the circumstances out there," he said, "but we're not going to be the first to the altar to be martyred."

Del Grosso maintains that Newark's turnover of teachers -- replacing veterans at the top of the salary scale with rookies at the bottom -- has actually saved the district money, a trend that he said will continue for the next few years.

Given that the district remains under state control, a member of Gov. Jon Corzine's administration also is expected to sit in on the negotiations for the first time, both sides confirmed.

Newark officials would not comment, but Del Grosso said he expects that should help encourage a quick settlement.

"I don't foresee them wanting labor problems in Newark, do you?" he said. "And we don't want them, either."

Lean times trim teacher raises

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