By KATHERINE PETERSEN
While district administrators are hopeful that a yearlong contract dispute may soon be resolved, many teachers say privately they are disappointed with the latest offer.
Regardless, the Fremont Education Association plans to vote on a contract--crafted by an independent fact-finding panel--on May 5 and 6.
The panel is asking the teachers to agree to a 7.05 percent salary hike--the same amount administrators have been offering for months--with the promise of more money if Fremont Union High School District's revenues exceed a $33 million baseline.
"In my opinion, the contract appears to help teachers who are close to retirement," said Sid Castro, an English teacher and baseball coach at Fremont High School. "It artificially inflates salary schedules to attract new teachers, but it does little to gain parity with neighboring districts."
Another teacher was more blunt: "They're stuffing the same old stuff down our throats."
The offer calls for money usually spent on health benefits to be tacked on to teachers' paychecks, giving them the choice whether to buy the district's health package. The same concept was advanced by administrators during negotiations but rejected by the teachers' union.
Under the terms of the offer, teachers would be protected from a rise in insurance premiums.
"We have agreed to pick up any increases in benefits for the three years of this contract," said Gregory Dannis, who represented the administration on the fact-finding panel.
Bebe Sellers, the district's chief negotiator, said she hopes the union approves the proposal, but wouldn't discuss details of what she called a "confidential" document.
But Sellers disagreed with some teachers' assessment of the offer.
"This is not the same old proposal," she said.
The union pushed its vote back a week in order to give its 400 teachers a chance to study the proposal's contents.
"We don't want to sway teachers in any direction. We just want to present the information and let them make up their own minds," FEA President George Gredassoff said.
If teachers approve the proposal, trustees will vote on the contract at their May 6 meeting.
While the additional $4,700 that teachers can use for a Kaiser Permanente health package will help out teachers' retirement funds, some educators are concerned about the lack of guaranteed raises for the second and third years of the contract.
Teachers may also opt for a more expensive Blue Cross package, with the district making up the difference in cost, under the proposal.
Negotiations between the district and the union began in March 1996, but stalled in August when both sides dug in their heels and appeared unable to find resolution.
Jerilou Cossack, the neutral member of the three-member panel charged with looking into unresolved issues between the two parties, submitted a proposed settlement agreement to each side April 11. The panel consists of one member chosen by each side and Cossack, chosen by the state's Public Employees Relations Board.
"The biggest problem a district faces is the uncertainty of its finances," Cossack said. One dispute arose over how the money in the district's reserves was counted.
While the union and the administration agreed on the amount of money in the district's reserves, they disagreed over how $2 million in retirement benefits should be counted. According to sources who are teachers, the district counts the retirement funds as restricted reserves, while the unions says the funds should be unrestricted.
Teachers would get additional one-time pay raises depending on the amount of money is in reserves for the three years of the contract.
"If they could agree on how much money is available, then they can probably agree on how it should be apportioned," Cossack said.
The teachers will be assured an honest look at the money and the district does not feel it will jeopardize its financial viability in this agreement, Cossack said.
"I truly do think it's a fair proposal, and it's a proposal that attempts, in some innovative ways, to address the needs of both parties," Cossack said.
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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, April 30, 1997.
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