Geneva teachers seek 1 percent raise in salary
The Geneva Education Association has proposed that the teachers receive a 1-percent raise in the 2012-13 salary schedule and a 1-percent raise in 2013-14, according to the “final offer” posted on the union’s website, gea4students.org.
The offer was submitted last week to the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board, after the union declared negotiations between it and the Geneva school district were at an official impasse.
In the first two years, teachers also would receive increases in pay based on increased seniority (step) and accumulated postgraduate education (lane).
In the third year of the proposed contract, teachers’ pay would be frozen the first half of the year, and only step and lane increases in the second half.
Negotiators for the Geneva Education Association and the Geneva school district are due to meet Tuesday with a federal mediator to work on a new contract, even though the union has declared the talks at an impasse.
Both sides were to submit their final offers Oct. 19 to the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board. The state and the school district do not have to publish the offers until Oct. 26.
Last week, the union membership authorized its leaders to call for a strike.
The district has proposed pay be frozen the first year, according to a prepared statement from the district.
The teachers’ contract offer also calls for the district to offer non-early-retirement-offer incentives for two more years. Currently, the district allows teachers to exercise that option for just one year before retirement; the district bumps the teacher’s pay up 6 percent in that final year. According to the union, other school districts in the area increase the pay for up to four years.
The teachers’ proposal calls for single teachers to start contributing something to the cost of their health-insurance premiums.
The previous contract expired Aug. 15. Negotiations started in February.
This is not the first time negotiations between the union and the district have stalled. In 1992, it took more than three months after the expiration of a contract for the two to settle on a new one.