Ogden Teachers Rally for Collective Bargaining

Ogden Teachers Rally for Collective Bargaining

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

OEA Negotiations Update Ratification WED AUG 12 3:30 UniServ Office, 939 25th St. Ogden

Looks like the website is still not cooperating. To receive a more detailed summary of the tentative agreement, email me at rick@ogdenweber.org and I will attach the summary in the reply.

The six ARRA professional development days will be paid at 75% of your contract daily rate. That is figured by dividing 181.5 into your salary. The legislature did not fund Quality Teaching Days this year. Some districts lost all or most of their days. (Jordan lost nine days). Our district was able to fund the six days from a combination of Federal stimulus money (Title One funds that our district can use to help us get out of corrective action) and district funds left over from the previous Quality Teaching budget. These days (optional) are to be used for professional development (mornings) and implementation (afternoons) in your classrooms. The OEA and the district will meet throughout the year to monitor and communicate ways for our district to move out of "district improvement".

Doug Stephens (new OEA president) and Lisa Vipperman (new OEA VP) are optimistic that we can work to strengthen the capacity of our members and improve the communication with the district. We will need your help.

They look forward to hearing from you on Wednesday, August 12 @ 3:30 for our ratification meeting. Please call us at 399 3746 or email us with your questions. rick@ogdenweber.org

Rick

OEA Tentative Agreement-Ratification Mtg. August 12 3:30 OW UniServ Office

Our webmaster is having some problems getting my summary up, so I will try and explain a bit more each day here on the blog.

The district paid 1.188 Million dollars into keeping the insurance premium increases down. Last year employees paid 12% of the premium. This year we will pay 14%. That number (without the 1.188 million) could have approached 30%. Jordan teachers, for example, pay almost 50% of the premium. The new monthly premium amounts for medical are: Alitus Peak: Employee-47.55 Employee + 1 dependent -107.46 and Family 154.54. We were able to keep the benefit package without any big changes.

Steps on the salary schedule will be frozen this year. The district has promised to pay those steps retroactively if funding for next year (after the 2010 legislature) reaches the amount we received in 2007-8 (before the reductions of 3 million dollars). Our team fought hard for the steps and we will continue to fight to see that those are paid in the future.

The one time payment in December is based on 75% of the cost of the steps for this year (approx. 418,000 dollars plus ss and retirment costs) That payment will paid out equally
to all teachers in December. The amount should be over 400.00, but we won't know until the Nov. 15 count of teachers.

We hope to get the summary up on the web soon. thanks Rick