TOPSHAM — Maine School Administrative District 75 is awaiting a recommendation from the state before trying to agree on a new three-year teacher contract.
The Merrymeeting Teachers Association is the union for teachers who work in MSAD 75, which serves students in Bowdoin, Bowdoinham, Harpswell and Topsham. The association has called for higher teacher salaries to compete with neighboring school districts to keep and attract good teachers.
Superintendent Shawn Chabot said the state panel is looking at what parts of the contract are preventing both sides from coming to an agreement. It could be up to 30 days after that visit before the panel delivers its recommendations, Chabot said. Once it does, the school district and teachers have 30 days to continue negotiations before the report becomes available to the public.
“The next step is to get that report and to get both sides back to the table and start working through the issues,” Chabot said.
The most current contract expired at the end of August. Negotiations between the district and the Merrymeeting Teachers Association failed earlier this year. Both the district and teachers’ union then used a neutral third-party mediator in May to help come to an agreement, which also failed.
The Maine Labor Relations Board appointed a three-person panel that visited the district Oct. 9 on a fact-finding mission. The board administers and enforces the state’s laws that govern collective bargaining for public sector employees and employers.
According to the association, a teacher with 15 years of experience and a master’s degree earns $61,454 in Brunswick, $62,898 in Bath and $64,316 at Freeport; but would only earn $54,300 in MSAD 75. The gap widens for teachers with 20 years of experience, it argues.
The school board included $500,000 for teacher salary increases in its proposed 2019-20 budget. In May, voters added an additional $600,000 to the budget at a district budget meeting. The resulting $42.1 million spending plan was approved by voters at the polls in June.
While the school board wasn’t required to actually spend the additional $600,000 on teacher salaries, Chabot said the board voted recently to move the money into the salary line.
“Right now, the teachers have started the school year without a raise,” Chabot said in a recent interview. As long as the stalemate continues, “it’s not good for morale and so we want to come to an agreement as soon as possible.”
Efforts to reach Nicole Karod, a spokesperson for the Merrymeeting Teachers Association, were unsuccessful Tuesday afternoon.
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