HEA Bargaining Update

Keeping You Informed
September 15, 2005

Your HEA negotiating team met with the board and their attorney, Barb Ruga on Tuesday September 13th. Some potential compromises on a couple of outstanding language issues were offered by our team, and a full response to their last proposal was given.

The board gave us some illustrative documents on their position as it relates to insurance. Bottom line is this, if you want ANY PLAN, even if it is substantively less than the current level of benefits you have so that your premium contributions (aka. pay cut to pay for it) aren’t very much this year; the district wants YOU to pay for any substantial increases in that plan going forward.

What does this mean to you? The answer is simple. YOU will be paying for future increases in benefit costs, OR you will subject yourself to a perpetual erosion of your benefits in the future. AND, all of this comes at no increased percentages to the salary schedule in either of the two years currently proposed by the district.

The board informed us that, no matter how we go about addressing the issue of attempting to meet the budget constraints of the district, their position on the insurance piece must be a part of this agreement.

We have our next negotiation date scheduled for September 28.