Teachers Get Average 2% Raise in New Pact with Sparta School Board

The Sparta Board of Education struck a new collective bargaining agreement with the district teachers' union late last week after 17 months of negotiations, the New Jersey Herald reported. The last pact expired in June 2012.

The union and the school board have signed a memorandum of agreement that states teachers will receive retroactive raises averaging 2 percent for the 2012-13 school year that ended in June, pay increases averaging 2.4 percent in the 2013-14 school year and raises averaging 2.3 percent the following year, the article said. Paraprofessionals, who are paid hourly to serve as classroom aides, will get increases of 40 cents, 45 cents and 50 cents per hour over the same 2012-15 period. Starting next year, state law requires teachers to pay 20-35 percent of their health insurance costs.

The costs of this deal would push the school budget beyond the state-mandated 2 percent cap, however, the BOE agreed to the plan under an expectation that much of the increased costs will be offset by health care savings. Because all district employees now must be consolidated into one insurance plan and teachers will have to pay 20-35 percent of their health insurance costs, the BOE expects to save a great deal of money over years to come, the article said.

The deal becomes official once the language to be written into a final contract, which should be within the next few weeks.