Pressure mounts to reach contract decision

While pressure mounts to reach a settlement between the Swanton School Board and the Swanton Education Association, a news release issued last week by the SEA muddied the water. The SEA cited an inaccurate entry placed in the Ohio School Board Association's salary database of salaries of school district treasurers.

The erroneous salary for Swanton school board treasurer Cheryl Swisher doubled her actual 2006-07 income. Before publishing the story last week reporters confirmed the salary quoted by the association. A few hours later the error was discovered by the OSBA and corrected. But the damage had been done.

In the 2006 school year Swisher's earned $64,000. Here's how her salary compares to other treasurer salaries in the area during that school year:

*Wauseon $67,664

*P-D-Y $55,500

*Evergreen $50,000

*Fayette $41,700

*Archbold $59,700

*Pettisville $58,000

The treasurer at Springfield Local Schools, due east of Swanton's district, earns $99,100 per year.

Association member and contact person Steve Brehmer learned of the error just a few hours after faxing the news release to various media outlets. He immediately contacted them, but missed the press deadline for the county newspaper.

Last Monday the association voted to grant its bargaining team the right, if necessary, to set a strike date. Negotiations for the contract, which expires in December, began in June. No agreement has been reached.

However the district's new superintendent, Paulette Baz accused the SEA of printing and distributing "misrepresentations and falsehoods, in hopes of creating pressure on the board to give in to the SEA's unreasonable demands."

She continued, "While the board would have preferred to keep the negotiations between the parties, it has no choice but to respond to the false and inaccurate statements" made by the association.

Baz said the SEA contends they are the lowest paid teachers in Fulton County. "Again, this is false," she stated. "While admittedly, the Swanton teachers, by comparison on their base salary, are below the average in Fulton County, more than half of teachers receive an increase in salary for the 2008-09 school year by virtue of their movement through the salary schedule.

"Further, salary cannot be examined in isolation of other benefits, specifically, health insurance. Swanton teachers pay on $12.20 per month for a single plan (or two percent), and $60.89 per month for a family plan (or four percent)."

She compares this to the next percentage of employees contribution in Fulton County for teachers at eight percent and the average employee contribution in Fulton County, which is almost 11 percent.

Baz said "it is clear that the Swanton teachers pay the lowest amount of any Fulton County School district toward health insurance premiums."

According to the superintendent "the SEA's initial proposal would have resulted in an increase of 14 percent for each teacher" and the SEA wanted the board to pay 100 percent of the health insurance premiums."

She said the board is hopeful that "reasonable minds will be able to reach a fair and amicable resolution of the issues facing the parties."

The Swanton teacher's bargaining team now has the authority to set a strike date , should the Swanton Board of Education "continue to be unwilling to reach a fair and reasonable contract settlement with its teaching staff," Brehmer said.

The current contract between SEA and the school board expires August 31.

The 88 member SEA and the Swanton Board of Education have been in negotiations since April, 2008. According the Brehmer there is "no sign of a contract settlement in sight."

The two parties received mediation assistance from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services. This has been unsuccessful, Brehmer said.

"Swanton teachers have the lowest across the board starting salaries of any school district in Fulton County, the lowest bachelor's level maximum pay, and the second lowest master's maximum pay," the SEA said.

The association's 88 certified classroom teachers, guidance counselors, librarians, media specialists, nurses, psychologists and others employed in the district unanimously approved last week's strike decision.