SAD 29 OKs contracts

By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
    HOULTON — Teachers in SAD 29 now have a new contract after the school board unanimously approved a three-year agreement at Monday night’s meeting.
    Superintendent Mike Hammer said Tuesday morning that he was glad the district was able to complete the ongoing contract negotiations relatively early into the school year. The teachers had been operating under their previous contract, which expired at the end of school in June.
    “Our reflection was there was a fair amount of give and take in the process,” Hammer said. “From my perspective it went fairly well. It’s stability for all of us. Now we can start planning our budget for next year.”
    The new contract calls for an average 3.25 percent increase in salaries for teachers, but that figure could be misleading, Hammer said.
    “Different people got different percentages, so it’s difficult to say,” he said. “Overall, it was not a large increase. It was spread out differently across the length of the contract.”
    From a budgetary perspective, Hammer said he did not think the salary increase would have a dramatic impact on the district. In Maine, first-year teachers are guaranteed a starting salary of at least $30,000, which was also factored into the contracts.
    “It really should have a minimal impact to our budget next year,” he said. “We had to go to the $30,000 base (salary) which is state-mandated.”
    The new contract also clears up language in the step system, Hammer said. Some teachers at the top of the step system, were moved down on the scale so that they could continue to see increases in future years instead of being maxed out at the top of the pay scale.
    “To try and track the step system was a managerial nightmare,” he said. “This system compensates people across the board.”