By LESTER CHANG
Fremont school administrators and teachers remain locked in a stalemate as they head into their seventh month of contract negotiations.
In its latest counterproposal, the Fremont Union High School District has offered a three year contract proposing salary increases from 5.4 percent to 6.38 percent.
As part of the proposal, the district has suggested combining health benefits with salaries and allowing teachers to put health care funds into a tax shelter plan.
The district has offered to meet with negotiators from the Fremont Education Association in June, July and August. The union, has not yet responded.
District gives two options
The FEA seeks salary increases that are acceptable to its nearly 400 members and opposes lumping health care benefits in with teacher salaries to create a total compensation package.
The contract expires in August.
In its counterproposal, given to the teachers' union at a June 14 meeting, the district offered two salary options through a proposed three-year contract.
The first option would give teachers a salary increase of 5.3 percent. If approved, new teachers would earn nearly $36,000 annually. New teachers currently make about $28,000.
The other part of this package would lump health-care benefits with salaries. Teachers would have a choice of keeping the $6,600 in health-care money as part of their salary or place it in a tax-sheltered account. Money put into the health-care account would be counted as salary when a teacher's retirement pension is calculated. The higher a teacher's salary, the higher his or her pension will be.
Teachers would choose health care benefits
In this scenario, teachers would be able to save money by selecting only the health-care services they need, district officials said.
Under the second option, the district would continue to pay $6,600 toward health benefits, although the funds would not be counted toward retirement.
As part of this option, teachers would have a 6.38 percent salary increase. New teachers would make $29,565 yearly.
During the past five years, teachers have received a total increase of 6 percent, while the cost of living has risen 19 percent, the FEA contends.
In addition, teachers with a master's degree or a doctorate would earn bonuses under this option as well.
Under the district's proposal, teachers would receive a 5.7 percent increase, but would assume nearly the entire cost of health care, the FEA said. This would negate the impact of the pay increase, and in many cases would represent a loss of wages, according to the FEA.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, July 3, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.