The tentative agreement reached last week between Lawrence teachers and school board negotiators included salary raises for a limited number of teachers and a promise to try to reward more teachers once the economy turns around.

Those concepts could be a common theme in teacher contract talks across the state as districts grapple with the state budget crisis.

“There has been an acknowledgment on the part of both sides in most places that these are extraordinary times,” said Wade Anderson, director of negotiations and research for the Kansas National Education Association, the state teachers union.

Kansas districts have cut $300 million in the last two years. Lawrence school board negotiators said the $4.6 million in cuts for the 2010-2011 school year restricted their ability to offer raises, mostly to teachers who completed more graduate course hours in the last year.

Frank Harwood, the Lawrence school board’s chief negotiator, said Lawrence Education Association negotiators recognized the district was in a difficult position and eventually asked that teachers who missed out on experience-based raises this year get credit for it in a future year when the budget picture improves.

“They came back with a plan that was probably one of the few that we could have agreed to,” said Harwood, the district’s chief operations officer.

Lois Orth-Lopes, the LEA’s negotiations chairwoman, said her team knew money was tight coming into talks.

“We came back with a suggestion that we get credit for that movement to be applied at a future date, which is a way of thinking outside the box so that we’re not frozen forever,” she said last week.

Less funds

Anderson said other local teachers unions in the state would likely have to use a similar strategy because nearly all districts are working with tight budgets.

“In most cases it’s my understanding the board negotiators are sympathetic and are at least willing to say we’d like to be able to make it up to people, we just can’t commit to it,” he said.

The growth in median salary and benefits packages for teachers in the state has slowed since 2009-2010 after years of growth when districts had extra money to work with as a result of a school finance lawsuit.

As of mid-June, about one-fifth of the state’s 289 districts reported contract settlements and the median base salary and benefits package was worth $37,384, up 1 percent from last year, according to a Kansas Association of School Boards report from June 17. The median package increased 1.1 percent in 2009-2010, after it went up 4 percent from 2007-2008 to 2008-2009.

Beyond salaries

Anderson, of the KNEA, said he was expecting the worst on salary offers, but he has been “pleasantly surprised so far.” He attributed that to some districts that offered minimal to no raises last year being able to offer more this year.

Other districts like Lawrence, which contributed $523,000 for teacher raises last year, couldn’t offer as much this year.

“Maybe it’s just kind of balancing out,” Anderson said.

The Lawrence deal on teacher salaries is estimated to cost the district $132,000 for graduate-education raises and another $30,000 to raise the district’s base salary for first-year teachers and boost salaries for educators in their second year with the district.

It will also cost the district $497,000 to cover a 14 percent health insurance plan increase for a single, base plan. Employees would face a similar increase in premiums for buy-up and family plans.

With districts strapped for funds, Anderson said negotiating teams will also be looking more at agreements on other contract language, such as a Lawrence provision that will give teachers who’ve served here longer than five years 10 discretionary days instead of five.

With the Lawrence tentative agreement, school board members and LEA members still must vote to ratify it. The school board is scheduled to consider the pact at its meeting, which will be 7 p.m. Monday at district headquarters, 110 McDonald Drive.