Contract negotiators for Lawrence teachers and the school board remained about $140,000 apart Friday evening on salaries with other issues still up in the air.

“We recognize that a lot of teachers are taking home less pay this year than they took home last year because of the fringe benefits package cost, and so we’re trying to just get as much as we can for them,” said Lois Orth-Lopes, representing the teachers as chief negotiator for the Lawrence Education Association.

More than 100 teachers looked on Friday at school district headquarters as their negotiators proposed $600,000 be spent on salary increases.

School board negotiators stuck by their previous offer of $460,000 more for salaries because they said the district was already forced to cut $1.6 million because of the economic recession, and administrators fear more cuts are coming in the next two years.

“The board’s goal has been to keep as many people employed as possible,” said Frank Harwood, the district’s chief negotiator. “And we know that anything we add to the salary schedule is ongoing expenses. It will just be more things we have to cut out of the next year’s budget.”

The salary proposals mainly differ on how the money would be spent.

The LEA’s offer includes $140,000 for horizontal movement on the salary schedule, which rewards teachers increasing their own college credit hours or earning a higher degree. The teachers’ offer would also include adding money to boost vertical movement, which rewards teachers for years of service with the district.

School board negotiators agree to the $140,000 for horizontal movement, but they want to spread the rest of the extra money out among all certified, licensed staff for a one-time payment of $350, which LEA negotiators oppose.

Teachers also presented data from the Kansas National Education Association that the Lawrence district slipped in the last year in teacher salary and benefits rankings in the state from 88th to 98th. They also said Lawrence improved from 38th to 35th in principal salaries and benefits, and held steady at 16th for superintendents.

Orth-Lopes also said in the single-income, four-person family of a new Lawrence teacher on a starting salary of $34,380, the children would qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

Harwood said it can be tough to compare teacher contracts in the state because they all include different benefits.

“I don’t think the board is arguing we wouldn’t like to pay teachers more. It’s just the board members are working on the amount of money they have and balancing all of the different parts of the budget that they have to work with,” he said.

In other topics of the session, teachers asked for a health savings account option to be added to the district’s health care plan in January. Harwood said board negotiators were not opposed to that, but they needed to investigate its effect more.

Orth-Lopes said because of tight budget times, the teachers are wanting to make more progress on contract items that don’t cost a lot of money, like the district’s leave policy, extra professional development requirements and how the work day is handled.

The two sides will return to the table at 4:30 p.m. Oct. 7 at Lawrence High School, 1901 La.

“We’re getting to the point where we’re pretty close,” Orth-Lopes said. “But if we can’t move, we have to do something about it.”