Mokena SD 159, teachers agree on contract

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Updated: February 23, 2012 8:21AM

Mokena School District 159 officials and teachers were shaking hands and smiling Saturday morning after the board unanimously ratified a new three-year teachers’ contract.

The pact was reached after 10 months of negotiations that included a mediator and a strike threat.

Teachers have been working without a contract since the previous five-year agreement expired June 30. The Mokena Teachers Association overwhelmingly ratified the agreement Jan. 17.

Board president John Troy and member Kathy Moore cast their votes via speaker phone.

The new pact calls for a salary freeze for the 2011-12 school year, a 2 percent increase and a 2.5 percent increase in the following two years, but no step increases. They agreed to restructure the salary schedule.

Supt. Steve Stein said money for the raises will come out of the district’s budget.

The district’s finances have “stabilized,” he said. “We will be in OK shape.”

“It’s been a long road,” board vice president Joe Spalla said of the negotiating process.

“It was a long, laborious ordeal,” Mokena Teachers Association spokeswoman Laurel McGowan said.

The sticking points were salaries and insurance, she said.

“It took a lot of creativity on both sides, especially with insurance. We redesigned the way we have been doing it. We wanted more control over the cost (of insurance),” she said.

The board was concerned with insurance costs and teachers wanted to be involved in the decision-making process, she said.

According to the new contract, the board will set aside a fixed amount of money for teachers’ insurance benefits and an insurance committee will meet to decide the benefit packages.

“It allows us to have a fixed cost, and the teachers will work as a committee to control the cost,” Spalla said. The district will have no additional insurance costs.

Spalla, who ran the 45-minute meeting in the absence of Troy, said the turning point came when the board brought in a new attorney with new ideas.

“He put everyone in the same room and we worked together,” board member Patrick Markham said. “Negotiations got to the point where it was very scary, but once we got in that room together, there was progress.”

The teachers union issued an intent to strike in late November saying it was disappointed in a lack of progress, but suspended that strike threat a week later, following a meeting in early December.

The new three-year contract replaces a five-year pact.

Teachers union member Craig Martinus said a five-year deal is “unusual.”

“It’s hard to forecast five years out,” he said. “Hopefully the cooperation we had will come back in two years (when the new contract expires).”

“I walked away from the negotiations feeling encouraged and a bit closer as a team,” Markham said.