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Hinsdale District 86 and its teachers agree to contract terms
Updated: April 8, 2013 6:07AM
HINSDALE — The Hinsdale High School District 86 Board agreement with teachers, approved Monday, gives those who receive a salary increase due to longevity no additional raise this year. Teachers at the top of their pay grade and not eligible for a longevity or “step” increase, will receive a raise of 0.5 percent for this school year, district officials said.
For the 2013-14 school year, teachers will get a raise of 1.23 percent on top of their step increase. Employees not eligible for a step increase will get only the 1.23 percent raise.
The School Board approved the agreement by a 6-1 vote after more than an hour of discussion in closed session Monday, with board member Dianne Barrett voting no.
Members of the Hinsdale High School Teachers Association voted Friday to ratify the agreement. The union represents a total of 356 teachers, counselors, social workers and librarians at both Hinsdale Central and South high schools.
The proposed agreement passed by a good margin, said Kathy Wynn, a librarian at Hinsdale South.
Superintendent Nicholas Wahl said the most positive aspect of the negotiations was an agreement by all to maintain a strong financial status in the district.
The district and the teachers are in the midst of a four-year contract that expires June 30, 2014. When the contract was negotiated in 2010, salary increases purposely were not set for the last two years of the agreement.
The 1.23 percent increase for employees next year was based on “a blended CPI,” that is the consumer price index of the past two years, School Board President Dennis Brennan said. “I think that’s fair and apparently (the teachers) did, too, since they ratified the agreement.”
The extra duty pay for jobs such as coaching will go up 2 percent.
“It’s money we can afford,” Brennan said. “We are limited by the tax cap and we can’t be giving raises that are beyond the money we are bringing in.”
The raises are retroactive to July 1, the contract year-end.
The teachers also agreed to pay the full employee contribution to the teacher retirement system. The district has been paying 9.4 percent of the employee’s contribution, Wahl said.
Collective bargaining started last March and continued until June. Negotiations ceased over the summer and resumed in September.
Over the course of those negotiations, everything related to money was discussed, including base pay, extra-curricular pay and health insurance, said Wynn. The only money issue not on the table was retirees’ benefit packages, Wynn said.
