Board asks teachers to reopen contracts

REGION 7 — Facing the most difficult budget season in decades, Region 7 school board members have formally asked the district’s teachers and staff unions to reopen their contracts in hopes of negotiating concessions in salary and benefits to help offset a significant fiscal crunch.

“It’s going to be a very, very difficult year for us, the towns and the state as a whole,� Northwestern Regional Superintendent of Schools Clint Montgomery said.

Board of Education Chairman Molly Sexton-Read and members of the administration met with leaders of the teachers union last week to discuss the district’s tough financial position.

The cost of the district’s contracted health insurance benefit packages are expected to increase 30 to 35 percent for the 2010-11 school year, according Montgomery.

Sexton-Read told school board members at their Jan. 27 meeting that union leaders said they would take the request to reopen teacher contracts to their membership before returning to the board with a response.

Currently, the district, which serves the towns of Barkhamsted, Colebrook, New Hartford and Norfolk, is operating on a $17.6 million budget for the 2009-10 school year, which represented a zero-percent increase from the previous budget.

At last week’s board meeting, Montgomery reviewed some of the district’s early preliminary budget projections at various levels of budgetary increases, and how those numbers could impact district employees:

• At a 3-percent increase, 14.8 full time-equivalent (FTE) teachers would be laid off, with a total of 21 district staff members losing their jobs.

• At a 2-percent increase, 18.8 FTE would be laid off, with a total of 25 staff members being impacted by the budget cuts.

• At a zero-percent increase or flat line budget, 26.2 FTE would lose their jobs, with a total of 33 staff members losing their jobs within the district.

In reaction to the numbers and difficult budget year ahead, the school board unanimously passed a motion at the end of last week’s meeting empowering the district to request “salary and benefits and concessions from all bargaining groups to maintain the quality and integrity of the district’s education services.�

In addition, board members also said that “everything is on the table� as far as cuts and reductions, including extracurricular activities such as sports and clubs.

Montgomery noted, however, that the numbers presented at last week’s meeting have not yet been finalized and only represent “initial scenarios� of how this year’s budget could impact teacher and staff levels throughout the district.

“These are shifting numbers,� he said, adding that more information will continue to come in over the next several days affecting various bottom lines. “Not all the data is in.�

Montgomery expects to present his budget recommendation to the school board on Feb. 24.

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