Contract talks await report from fact-finder

By: Stephanie Prokop
   CHESTERFIELD — The township Board of Education and the Chesterfield Township Teachers Association failed to reach an agreement on a new salary contract at a Oct. 11 meeting with a state mediator and negotiations will now enter the fact-finding phase.
   Salary increases and health care costs are among the issues that caused the deadlock, according to Board of Education President Craig Thier.
   "We just completed state-sponsored mediation, where the state mediator comes in to get both sides to reach an agreement," Mr. Thier said on Oct. 12. In the next step of the process, a state-appointed fact-finder will go out into the neighboring school districts, collect information on teachers’ contracts, and present the findings to the Chesterfield Board of Education.
   The report is fairly detailed and could take up to six months to complete, Mr. Thier said.
   The previous teachers’ contract expired June 30, 2006. The new contract would be retroactive from July 1, 2006 and expire June 30, 2009.
   The school board issued a statement on Oct. 11 that it had offered a 14.76 percent raise for teachers over the next three years, while the teachers association has asked for a 21.76 percent increase.
   The school board’s proposal would include a 5.06 percent raise for first year, 4.9 percent raise for the second year, and 4.8 percent raise for the third year. The Chesterfield Township Teachers Association is asking for a 7.0 percent raise in the first year, a 7.25 percent raise in the second year, and a 7.5 in the third year, according to Mr. Thier.
   The state average salary increase is 4.63 percent per year and the Burlington County average is 4.88 percent annually, Mr. Thier said.
   "We are looking for cost-containment and cost-certainty," Mr. Thier said.
   The Chesterfield Township Teachers Association could not be reached for comment.
   Steve Swetsky, a field representative with the New Jersey Education Association commented on the negotiation update on the teachers’ behalf.
   "The association will deal with all of those negotiations issues in the proper form, and has done so and will continue to do so in the fact-finding process," he said. "The association looks forward to a neutral third party, who can assist the association and the school board with all further decisions."