New Haven Teachers Accept Extreme Cuts in Health Care, Salary

New Haven teachers have signed a three-year contract with New Haven Community Schools that will mean extensive concessions in health care, salary and benefits starting in 2011-12.

“These are unprecedented times and this is an unprecedented contract. The teachers truly understand our financial dilemma and they have ratified a contract that will go a long way to solve it,” said Superintendent Keith Wunderlich in a release. “We have an amazing group of teachers who care about what’s best for students. This contract is an outstanding example of how they’ve done what’s best for kids and what’s best for the district.”

While the contract is expected to save the district some $1.2 million in the 2011-12 school year alone, it means a different health care option for teachers with increased deductibles, increased co-pays and a 20 percent premium payment.

The contract, ratified by the New Haven School Board on June 28, also dictates:

• No steps
• Six unpaid furlough days
• No longevity
• The elimination of an entire salary lane. Teachers currently in this lane will be grandfathered in, but the elimination will apply to future teachers.

The base salaries of New Haven's 76 teachers will not change, but the six unpaid furlough days will amount to a pay cut around 3 percent, said Marcy Gerlach, president of the New Haven Education Association. 

"I represent a pretty small unit and we are among the lowest paid in Macomb County," Gerlach said. "They are a pretty dedicated, hard-working group of people and it was very difficult to go to them with this sort of concessionary package, but the truth of the mater is, we are a very realistic group, and the state is very unfriendly toward teachers right now."

Gerlach added she felt both the teachers and district approached the contract negotiations very realistically.

"We are already in a hole because of the deficit and we felt the best way to deal with this would be in a congenial matter and not make a struggle that would serve no purpose," she said.

These concessions will help the district to counteract an estimated $630,000 loss in state funding for 2011-12, but will not solve the district’s deficit.

“The cuts in state funding and the increases in health care and retirement costs have hurt us,” Wunderlich said in a release. “Had our funding levels stayed the same, we could have almost entirely eliminated the deficit next year. Instead, we’re facing over $800,000 in deficit.”

In an effort to draw more students to the district, and thus eliminate the deficit, New Haven will add, rather than eliminate, programs next school year.

Band and choir will return and a new K-12 alternative energy curriculum, including solar panels, wind turbines and biofuels, will be implemented. Mandarin Chinese will also be an option for high school students.