Town Council Approves Teachers Contract

The Town Council approved a three-year contract between the Board of Education and the North Branford Federation of Teachers Union at a special meeting held last week.

A special meeting was required because there were no school board members present at the council’s regularly scheduled meeting a week prior. Also, the March 1 meeting marked the first time the council laid eyes on the 43-page contract [which you can find attached to this article as a PDF] although it was filed with the town clerk on Feb. 9.

“We want an explanation of what you guys did, rather than letting it win by default,” council member Al Rose said to BOE Chairwoman Marcey Onofrio and Director of Business and Personnel Donald Winnicki at the March 8 special meeting. “We had no idea what changes there were, it was only the contract,” he said.

“We didn’t know we had to come to the last meeting,” Onofrio said.

Winnicki, also absent at the meeting a week earlier, explained the contract to the council. Here are the nuts and bolts as Winnicki sees it:

Year One (2011-12): Zero general wage increase and no step movement – to be explained in year two of the contract.

Year Two (2012-13): All teachers not at the maximum step level (12) in 2011-12 will advance one step. For example, a teacher with a master’s degree making $58,357/year at the fifth step level will be bumped up to the sixth step level where he or she will make $61,935/year. [See page 34 of attached PDF for further details.] The step movement results in a 3.3 percent wage increase.

Year Three (2013-14): A two percent general wage increase and no step movement.

Winnicki said the hard zero in year one was the direction of the Town Council and the Board of Education. The true zero was the goal of the contract, albeit a relatively hard sell, he said.

Rose responded that it should not have been a hard sell because, compared to neighboring towns like Madison, North Branford teachers are paid very well. However, he added, “I think we got a good contract.”

“I sat in at every negotiation,” Mayor Anthony Candelora said. “It was interesting and they did some good housekeeping.”

With that, the council approved the contract unanimously.