The WW-P Board of education on June 28 approved a three-year agreement with the WW-P Education Association, the union representing 850 teachers and nonsupervisory employees.
The new contract runs from July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2019, replacing the previous three-year contract that had expired June 30.
The collective bargaining process seems to have been resolved quietly, in contrast to teacher contract negotiations in Princeton and Lawrence, where talks turned acrimonious this year before finally being resolved. Both of those districts settled on contracts with slightly teacher lower raises, but WW-P won concessions on prescription co-pay costs.
Although the district released selected details about the agreement in a brief press release, Assistant Superintendent Larry Shanok ignored repeated requests by the News to provide the full text of the approved agreement.
Board member Dana Krug, who chaired the negotiations committee, referred specific inquiries to the administration. Multiple emails to union president Bruce Salmestrelli also went unanswered.
The board approved the agreement by a 7-0-1 vote. Isaac Cheng was absent and Yingchao Zhang abstained because his wife is a public school teacher in another district. According to the press release, the union has already ratified the agreement.
The press release included “key elements” of the agreement. The next three school years include salary increases of 2.9 percent, while extracurricular stipends increase 2 percent in years 2016-17 and 2017-18 only. Teaching hours and total work days remain the same.
Shanok did provide details on the median teacher salary in the district, which he said is $84,500. Salaries and benefits for all employees accounted for 75 percent of last year’s $154.7 million general operating budget, which does not include capital and debt service expenses.
While the WW-P union won higher salary increases relative to those negoitiated by neighboring teacher’s unions, it seems the administration held firm at the bargaining table on health insurance.
Prescription benefit plan co-pays increased. Previously set at $10 generic/$20 brand name/2x applicable co-pay for 90-day mail order, the new agreement introduces a three-tier plan that increases brand name co-pays for union members: $10 generic/$35 brand name/$50 non-preferred brand name/2x applicable co-pay for 90-day mail order.
“This change will result in a savings to the district approximately $500,000 in year one of the agreement and will serve as a significant cost containment for increases in prescription premiums in subsequent years,” said the district press release.
With respect to employee contributions, the press release states, “Teachers will continue to contribute toward the cost of medical and prescription insurance premiums at the rates of the full phase-in of Chapter 78 rates.”
According to the district, the average health plan contribution rate of union members in 2015-16 was 24 percent.
Chapter 78 refers to a section of the 2011 New Jersey health benefits reform law for public employees that dictates the phase-in of higher employee contributions for their healthcare plans.
The “full phase-in,” also known as Tier 4, is the highest level of employee premium contributions. (Contributions range from 3 percent to 35 percent of the premium and cannot go below 1.5 percent of an employee’s base salary.)
In WW-P, union members will continue to make health plan contributions at the Tier 4 rate, an issue that was fiercely bargained in nearby districts.
Negotiations turned public in both the Princeton and Lawrence school districts, where union contracts in each district expired in June 2014.
The 360-plus member union in Princeton eventually reached a four-year agreement in July 2015. According to press reports, that agreement included a salary increase of 2.66 percent for 2014-15; 2.67 percent for 2015-16; 2.50 percent for 2016-17; and 2.63 percent for 2017-18. Longevity pay will be eliminated in year four of the contract, replaced with the new step system.
The teacher’s union in Princeton sought to negotiate Tier 4 contributions, but under their most recent contract teachers continue to make healthcare contributions at the Tier 4 level.
In return, employees subscribed to the district’s health care benefits program receive annual health care stipends for the final three years of the contract to offset the cost of their Tier 4 payments. The agreement in WW-P contain no such stipends, although longevity pay remains untouched.
The agreement in Princeton was reached after nearly two years of negotiations, concluding before both sides were set to begin the “fact-finding” arbitration stage that involves a state appointed fact-finder who costs roughly $2,000 a day.
Negotiations with the 560-plus member union in Lawrence actually reached the fact-finding stage, and the Lawrence school board did not vote on an agreement until last November.
The three-year contract in Lawrence included raises of up to 2.7 percent, according to press reports, with extracurricular stipend increases of 2 percent. Tier-4 level contributions were maintained.
The contracts in both Lawrence and Princeton were retroactive to the date of expiration. The Lawrence contract expires in 2017 and the Princeton contract expires in 2018. The WW-P contract expires in 2019, at which time both sides will resume the debate over how they will split the premiums to be extracted by insurance companies.
