Sisters school salary settlement stalled by Salem Senate stalemate

Sisters teachers and the school board are unable to agree on a contract until the Oregon Legislature decides how much money will be available for schools.

"Negotiations about salaries are on hold until we know what the legislature is going to do. We are probably looking at late this month or next," for a contract settlement, said Schools Superintendent Steve Swisher.

Swisher said "the school board position is that there is only a certain amount of dollars and they are not willing to cut programs to grant raises. Teachers have said they are not keeping up with inflation."

There has been little progress in resolving other issues, Swisher noted.

Kirk Albertson, representing the teachers' union, the Sisters Education Association, agreed with Swisher that the two sides had strong philosophical differences regarding discipline procedures and the personal leave policy.

"However, we had a very interesting discussion on salary. Within an 8.5 percent increase under a simulation provided by the state, they (the school board) thought they could find room for a salary increase," Albertson said.

That could actually be as high as 13.5 percent, Albertson said, but even "the worst case scenario from Salem is that we will have an increase in budget from last year."

School board Chairman Bill Reed has a slightly different view of the salary talks.

"There may be more revenue (from the state), but that is coming with strings attached. Some of it must be spent on maintenance and asset purchases," Reed said.

Even then, Sisters used a number of $4,590 per student in preparing its budget for next year. The Senate would spend about $4,650, Swisher said. This increase would amount to about $60,000 for the 1,000 student Sisters School District.

The Oregon House has considered allocating about $200 more per student, which could add $200,000 or so to the budget.

However, the amount available has not been established, and neither would allow granting raises and restoring cuts made in personnel last year, according to Swisher.

"In any of these scenarios, if we are going to bring back the elementary school physical education specialist and keep ourselves to a student/teacher ratio of 25 to 1, and replace cuts in education assistants, that does not make any room for salary increases. If we do increase salaries, we have to ask, what are we not going to replace?" Swisher said.