NAUGATUCK — The Board of Education last week approved a new three-year contract for administrators.
The contract goes into effect July 2017 and runs through June 2020. The union’s membership voted to ratify the contract on Nov. 8. The union covers administrators in all the borough’s public schools.
Under the contract, wages for administrators will increase 2.25 percent the first year and 2.5 percent the next two years.
Starting in January 2018, all employees in the union will be enrolled in a high deductible health care plan. The deductibles are $2,000 for a single person and $4,000 for a family. The board will contribute 40 percent towards the deducible, which is a 5 percent decrease from the current contract.
“This places the Naugatuck Board of Education in a very good position as we are much more progressive than many of the other districts in and out of our [District Reference Group],” board Chairman Dorothy Neth-Kunin said.
The contract stipulates that eligible employees will also pay 22 percent toward the premium of the health plan throughout the life of the contract.
The contract also now requires a retiree to enroll in the state’s Teachers’ Retirement Board Medicare Supplemental program if they are eligible for Medicare.
Neth-Kunin called this move a “cost-saving measure” for the borough.
New language in the contract also allows the board to pay newly-hired administrators a reduced amount of the negotiated salary for the positions. The reduced amounts start at 85 percent in the first year and increase 5 percent each year until reaching 100 percent in year four.
The contract also creates a new classification of coordinator of early childhood. This position was created and filled earlier this year to oversee the Early Childhood Center at Central Avenue.
In addition to what it does for the administrators themselves, the contract waives the non-residential tuition fees for children of administrators who are not residents of Naugatuck but want to attend Naugatuck public schools.
Messages left for union representatives seeking comment were not returned.
They should be demoting than rewarding. A system full of lazy, uninterested teachers. Kids suffer while the so called teachers receive more salary. Sad.