MONROE An agreement between negotiators, reached in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, is two steps away from becoming a three-year contract between the Monroe Board of Education and the Monroe Township Education Association.
By:Al Wicklund
MONROE An agreement between negotiators, reached in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, is two steps away from becoming a three-year contract between the Monroe Board of Education and the Monroe Township Education Association.
A tentative agreement was reached after two marathon sessions in which the negotiating committees worked with Paul Glasson, a mediator appointed by the state Public Employment Relations Commission.
The session earlier this week went for 13 hours, ending Tuesday at 5 a.m. The previous negotiation, Feb. 12-13, went for 10 ½ hours.
And now, the yearlong bargaining process could be over by Wednesday.
While a proposed contract was agreed upon by both negotiating committees, there won’t be a new contract until it is ratified by the MTEA membership and the full Board of Education.
The association’s membership will vote on the tentative agreement Monday. If the MTEA accepts the proposal, the board will vote at its 8 p.m. Wednesday business meeting at the Brookside School.
Caren Castaldo and Stacy Grimaldi, co-presidents of the MTEA, met in a closed meeting with their members Thursday to discuss the details of the proposed contract.
Until both sides have voted in favor of the agreement, the terms of the contract will not be made public.
Board President Susan Cohen said she was encouraged by the results of the latest negotiating session and hoped for a successful conclusion to the bargaining process, which began Feb. 14 of last year
Ms. Castaldo said she also was encouraged by the tentative agreement. She said she believed it addressed the issues that caused a previous tentative agreement to be voted down by MTEA members in December.
That previous proposal, which called for a 5 percent pay raise in the first year of the three-year contract and increases of 4.5 percent in each of last two years, lost 337-19.
Ms. Castaldo said her members, after that vote, expressed dissatisfaction with the proposed structuring of the salary guide, the formula that distributes pay increases based on years of service and academic achievement, and with health-care insurance provisions.
Ms. Castaldo said she has continued to be pleased by the unity shown by the members of the MTEA and by the community support the association has received.
The MTEA represents teachers and other school district employees, including secretaries, paraprofessionals, school bus drivers, cafeteria staff and library coordinators.
MTEA members have been working under the terms of their previous three-year contract which expired last June 30. When a contract is signed, all pay increases will be retroactive to that expiration date.