School Board Approves Fact-Finder's Recommendations

Saucon Valley School Board, in a step to end contract gridlock with district teachers, accepted a fact-finder's recommendations for a new contract Wednesday night.

The board said it's ready to make the acceptance official at next Thursday's board meeting.

Saucon Valley Education Association—the teachers union—also met Wednesday night to discuss the recommendations and decided to give its membership more time to review them before voting.

The school board action was announced in a news release by district superintendent Sandra Fellin.

The education association action was announced in an email to Patch from Jim Colbert, the association's chief negotiator.

If both sides accept the fact-finder's recommendations, they will become binding, according to a recent story in the Express-Times.

Fellin's release did not say what the fact-finder recommended. The release said if the education association rejects the recommendations, they will be made public by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board. The release also said the union will again have a chance to vote on the recommendations.

The 189 teachers represented by the association have been working without a contract since June 30, 2012. Talks on a new pact began in January 2012. Teachers went out on strike in fall 2009 before the most recent contract was adopted. They also went out on strike in 2008 and 2005.

Fellin's release quoted Ed Inghrim, chairman of the school board's negotiating committee, as saying the recommendations "reflect a significant modification from the table positions of both the Saucon Valley Education Association and the Board of School Directors of the Saucon Valley School District."

Inghrim continued, "The negotiating team is absolutely convinced that this report represents where both parties need to move to in order to get to a fiscally sustainable settlement and that is and, will be, our recommendation at the Nov. 7 meeting."

Colbert, in his email, pointed out that state law allows a 10-day consideration period of the fact-finder's report, which he said was issued Monday (Oct. 28).

"We did share the report with our membership last evening," Colbert said. "As you could imagine, due to the large amount of information in the report, the decision was made to allow the members more time to review the report before they vote. We will inform you of the vote as soon as possible but certainly no later than Thursday, Nov. 7."

According to a recent story in The Morning Call, two issues that have become sticking points are a teacher retirement incentive program and the decision-making process for teachers who want to obtain a district-paid graduate degree.

Fellin's release also quotes school board president Mike Karabin as saying, "Both the union and the school board jointly went into this fact-finding process in order to find some middle ground to resolve our difficult issues. Though the negotiating team was not pleased with all of the recommendations, on balance we believe that the fact-finder did an excellent job in balancing the need of our community to have responsible taxation and the need for our faculty to be paid fairly.

"We remain hopeful that when the association votes [it] will approve the report due to its equitable nature and [the] association's responsibility to our wonderful school community," Karabin said.

The association, also frustrated by the lack of progress in contract talks, in September asked for a state mediator to enter the talks.

Fellin identified the fact-finder as Rochelle Kaplan. She was appointed by the labor relations board.

Saucon Valley School Board meetings are normally held on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. in the high school Audion room. But the meeting was changed to Thursday, Nov. 7 in anticipation of the fact-finder's recommendations, an Express-Times story said.