Bellefonte Educators Union, School District Reach Tentative Contract Agreement to Avert Strike

Bellefonte Area School District and the union representing 230 of its teachers and staff reached a tentative contract agreement on Saturday, narrowly averting a labor strike that was scheduled to begin on Monday.

Details of the four-year contract were not immediately disclosed, but the Bellefonte Area Education Association and school district said the union had formally withdrawn its strike notice.

Both parties will vote on ratification “in the near future,” and staff will report for school as usual on Monday.

“We thank the community for its strong support for our public schools,” union President Allison Kyte said in a statement. “We are hopeful we will be able to move forward with the district and continue to build the kind of schools Bellefonte students and families deserve.”

The agreement brings to an end months of negotiations that had grown publicly contentious after teachers and staff started the new school year without a contract.

Union members said they were seeking salary increases that address the compensation gap that put Bellefonte’s professional staff at the bottom of the pack among Centre County school districts.

According to a presentation by school district solicitor Carl Beard at a school board meeting on Tuesday, district officials had most recently proposed a 4.5% annual salary increase, an outlay of an additional $7.45 million over four years for an average annual raise of $3,175 per teacher.

BAEA had proposed a 6% annual increase, which would mean an additional $10.09 million over four years and an average raise of $4,332 per teacher.

Including mandatory retirement contributions and payroll taxes, the total gap between the two proposals is about $3.3 million.

Prior to Saturday, the two parties had reached tentative agreements or agreements in principle on a number of issues, though in addition to salaries were still negotiating issues including personal and child rearing leave and language related to tuition reimbursement.

In public statements, the union and school boards were at odds over district finances. Among other disputes, while the union said growth in the district’s tax base positioned it to meet salary demands, the school board President Jon Guizar said the proposed 4.5% salary increase matched the five-year average growth in the district’s real estate tax collection.

Guizar also said the board wanted a resolution that fairly compensated teachers and staff and kept tax increases at a level the community could bear.