BY LAUREN MATTHEW
Staff Writer
OLD BRIDGE – The Board of Education and the teachers union recently settled negotiations on a new three-year contract.
The contract will allow for salary increases of 4.7 percent each year, with a net cost of 3.8 percent due mostly to health benefit givebacks, according to school Business Administrator Nancy Mongon.
The new contract takes effect July 1 and runs through June 30, 2009.
“It’s similar to what it was in the past,” Mongon said of the contract’s provisions, noting that the last settlement included salary increases of 4.6 percent.
The contract covers most district employees, she said, since teachers, bus drivers, secretaries and custodians all belong to the Old Bridge Education Association union.
Board members Barbara Rossi, Linda Ault-McLaren and John Allen served on the committee dealing with negotiations, along with a professional negotiator.
Ault-McLaren noted that the full Board of Education voted on the contract, though some of its members have relatives who work for the school district and will be served by the new contract. Even if the majority of board members at the time of the vote did not have relatives working in the district, those who did would still be permitted to vote on the union’s contract, she said.
“They would be allowed to vote anyway,” she said.
Ault-McLaren described the negotiation process as “peaceful and amiable.” The teachers’ union, led by union president and Miller School teacher Anne Chomko, did not make outrageous demands.
The primary goal of everyone involved, Ault-McLaren said, was for Old Bridge students to get the best education possible.