By James Lomuscio
Westport’s Representative Town Meeting tonight voted unanimously not to reject a three-year teachers’ contract that calls for a 2 percent salary increase next year and only step increases the remaining two years.
By not rejecting the contract, which takes effect July 1 and runs through June 30, 2013, the RTM officially sanctioned the agreement hammered out last summer between the Board of Education and the union, Westport Education Association.
It also avoided the specter of state-mandated binding arbitration, something the school system’s attorney Thomas B. Mooney warned would most likely wind up costing the school system more.
“You never like to gamble,” said Donald O’Day, school board chairman after the vote about the RTM avoiding the risk of arbitration. “We all wanted to arrive at a situation that was a win-win.”
“This is the final part of a relatively long process,” he added.
When speaking before the town’s legislative body, O’Day stressed the contract’s fiscal soundness in that it only provides for a 2 percent general salary increase for the first year and no step increases.
Step increases are raises linked to teachers moving into higher tiers based on educational advancement.
The contract’s second year stipulates a 3.45 percent step increase, O’Day said, but no general salary increase, and the third year, a 3.75 percent step increase with no general increase.
The strongest comment in support of the contract came from RTM member Michael Rea who said the town need to maintain good teachers and attract new ones.
“They are the magic, not the buildings,” said Rea. “Let this be the night that the RTM did not blink.”
“Just remember that the RTM stood behind the schools most important element, the teachers,” he added.
His last comment was in reference to the fact that the school board may go before the RTM in May for restorations in the event that the Board of Finance Wednesday night does not restore the full $1 million cut it made from the school board’s 2010-2011 proposed budget.
