May 11--The board for Palatine-area grade schools is scheduled to vote Wednesday evening on whether to approve salary increases for teachers, despite having already adopted a new, highly unusual 10-year contract.
The second vote on the teachers contract in Community Consolidated School District 15 comes after questions were raised about the length and provisions of the deal. Teacher contracts lasting more than five years are extremely rare, let alone one double that in length. District officials said the agreement -- yet to be released publicly despite the original vote -- will provide teachers with, on average, four years of 2.5 percent raises, followed by six years of 4 percent raises, for a compound total interest rate of about 40 percent.
In addition, teachers who take advantage early retirements incentives as soon as they're eligible also get raises of six percent their last four years of work.
Community Consolidated School District 15 Superintendent Scott Thompson said the second vote is needed to specify the terms of the deal.
"The Board voted on an agreement, not a specific contract," Thompson wrote in an email to the Tribune. "Key components of the agreement were outlined, and no specific contract language or salary schedules were voted upon."
At least two board members, though, said they saw a salary schedule prior to the initial vote last month, after the teachers union ratified the deal. Typically, school officials elsewhere said, districts vote just once to approve a teachers' contract, and sign it after details are finalized. After the first school board vote in April, the district issued a press release announcing the deal, but making no mention that a second vote would be taken.
Administrators said the total cost of spending on teacher salary will increase less than 1 percent under the new contract because, as teachers retire, they will be replaced by new employees at half the cost.
Board member Jessica Morrison said she joined the unanimous board vote to support the deal because of the low overall cost, and to avoid strikes and turmoil that have engulfed other districts like Chicago Public Schools.
"You're not going to see what's happening in Chicago happen in Palatine," she said. "We're approaching this in a less adversarial way. Nobody wants to see a strike."
While some have criticized the deal for giving raises that aren't seen in many parts of the private sector, Morrison said, "In the private sector, anybody would lock in a 10-year contract (at a cost of) less than 1 percent."
But she acknowledged that she has heard from critics and supporters of the deal, and expects to see both sides at the board meeting.
A representative with the teachers union, the Classroom Teachers' Council of District 15, could not be reached for comment.
District 15 is one of the largest elementary districts in the state, with 21 schools serving all or parts of seven municipalities in the northwest suburbs. The average salary at District 15 last year was $75,203, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.
The district has not released the approved contract, and how it will address some potentially substantial costs, such as health care, remains unknown.
The district cost estimates also do not include so-called lane increases, which are raises given to teachers who receive credit for additional schooling toward advanced degrees. Seventy percent of District 15 teachers get raises for having a master's degree or higher, and previously, the district budgeted roughly $200,000 a year for such increases.
The district did release the new salary schedule Monday in advance of its board meeting. Under the proposal, raises would fluctuate greatly, depending on experience and education. A teacher on the higher of the district's two tiers with 11 years of experience who obtains a master's degree in the sixth year of the deal would see a one-year salary hike of 11 percent, to $66,320.
Starting pay for new teachers with no experience would go from the current $39,944, to $42,401 in 2025-26, an increase of only 0.6 percent a year.
One complicating factor is that the current contract established a two-tier salary schedule, under which new teachers are paid less. The future contract would shift new teachers onto the higher Tier 1 schedule after their sixth year.
Thompson said the district followed the same general procedure for contract approval as it did when the current contract was approved in 2012. But former board member Scott Herr, who helped negotiate that agreement, begged to differ. He said the previous board had a complete draft of the contract and salary schedule -- not just highlights -- before they approved the deal.
He considers the contract "fundamentally flawed," saying he expects teachers to seek renegotiation at some point because there is apparently no provision to account for inflation in parts of the salary schedule.
School administrators denied Freedom of Information requests for copies of the contract, saying it was a draft that had not yet been finalized, despite board approval. Thompson said he will release the rest of the contract after the language has been finalized by attorneys.
After the Tribune appealed the denial to the Illinois Attorney General, that office issued a letter to the district Friday asking for a copy of all withheld records for a confidential review, with a "detailed legal and factual explanation" for the denial. Assistant Attorney General Matt Hartman asked for explanation of why the approved agreement constitutes a draft, and "whether any of the records... have been publicly cited and identified by the head of the District."
Thompson said the district is in the process of responding to the request.
Tribune reporter Diane Rado contributed.
rmccoppin@tribpub.com
