Warren, WHRHS Not Alone in Troubled Contract Talks

As negotiations between local education associations and their respective boards of education stretch on, residents may find cold comfort in the lack of agreement in several surrounding districts as well.

Negotiations for new contracts for teachers at Bridgewater-Raritan High School, whose contract expired at the end of June, and for have hit the same roadblocks as local negotiations.

At Bridgewater, —putting the talks at about the same point as negotiations at Watchung Hills Regional. According to statements by the BRRHS board, the two groups are split on salary increases in the second and third years of the contract being negotiatied, with the education association seeking raises of 3.81 percent for both years, and the board offering 1 percent increases in both years. Both sides' proposals include no increase for the first year.

Salaries are also the crux of the troubled talks at RVCC, where the school's trustees' offer that includes no increase in the first year was called a non-starter for faculty negotiators.

The issues echo the challenges here, with both boards reluctant to offer increases that could push them over the 2 percent tax levy cap or threaten school programs. None of the people involved in the talks will comment on the specifics on how far apart negotiators are, but the Warren Board of Education has said the district's education association is seeking increases totaling about 10 percent over the contract's three years.

According to the New Jersey School Boards Association, salaries in contracts settled since April 2011 include average increases of 2.1 percent, compared to 2.66 percent for contracts settled since January 2010.

But all the negotiations are also tangled in concerns about heath care costs—the new rules for employee participation now in effect will be increasing costs to the employees, and school boards are still facing large increases in costs from insurers. The Warren Township Board of Education switched insurers to reduce costs, but the move triggered the township education association to file an unfair labor practices complaint.  

Warren Township negotiators await a fact-finder's report, due before the end of January, while Watchung Hills Regional negotiators are waiting to meet with a state-appointed mediator.