Teachers get most of their demands in proposed Hinsdale contract
Most of the Hinsdale High School District 86 teachers union's demands are being met in a new two-year contract expected to be ratified Monday by the school board.
That's according to a copy of the contract proposal obtained by the Daily Herald.
The district had sought a 35-step salary schedule that would have slowed teachers' abilities to receive maximum pay. Instead, the proposed contract calls for maintaining the current the 19-step scale with a 1 percent increase in pay each year.
The current starting teacher salary in the district is $52,379, but about one-third of the teaching staff receives the maximum salary of more than $127,000 a year.
The district also had hoped to freeze stipends for extracurricular and after-school programs, but the proposed contract calls for increases for coaches, academic club advisers and event chaperones.
The district also planned to charge teachers upward of $200 a month for spousal health insurance, but the proposed contract calls for just a $25 a month surcharge for spouses.
Board President Richard Skoda said there are many questions that remain despite a tentative agreement by both sides.
"The board has not had a chance to discuss this tentative agreement among ourselves after (board negotiators) agreed to it Oct. 9," he said Friday. "The first opportunity that the board has to hear from our negotiators about what is included in this tentative agreement will be Monday night. I, and I assume other members, have questions on the details of the contract that we have not had the opportunity to yet ask or have answered among ourselves."
The union did agree to decrease end-of-career pay raises that amounted to 6 percent boosts in each of the last four years to a 3 percent yearly increase.
That wasn't enough for some critics who wanted the perk to end.
"It's pension spiking," said Paul Kersey, director of labor policy at the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative organization that tracks and analyzes government spending. "It's less egregious, but it's still fiddling with pension payouts."
The district's current contract expired last spring and the union threatened to strike earlier this month, but called it off after negotiating the terms of the proposed contract.
The strike threat came after an earlier controversy that ended with administrators abandoning a plan to question 17 teachers who "liked" a Facebook post about negotiations that included a picture of an ax through a windshield. The photograph somehow appeared on a link on the union's Facebook page to a Patch.com story about the contract talks. Patch later said that "an Internet glitch" caused the problem.
Union officials did not respond Friday to requests for comment on the tentative contract.
Both Skoda and Kersey were critical that the public was unable to inspect the contract prior to the board's scheduled vote, but the contract proposal is available for viewing at the Daily Herald's website, dailyherald.com.
"This is a particular case where more scrutiny is needed," Kersey said. "Employee salaries could make up half or more of the cost of running the district."