RANGELEY – School officials and support staff have reached an agreement in a three-year contract. Now it’s up to voters Thursday to consider paying the 18-member association retroactive pay and health benefits.

Negotiations between the Rangeley Lakes Regional School Committee and the Rangeley Support Staff Association ended up going to an independent state fact-finders panel after talks broke down in January.

Among the issues that couldn’t be settled were wages and insurance benefits.

The Rangeley school board adopted the fact-finders nonbinding recommendations earlier this month, Superintendent Kenneth Coville said.

Both parties settled on a 4 percent increase on the base wage each year of the contract for most staff, except for bus drivers, who get a 4.5 percent increase on the base wage each year of the three-year agreement.

School Committee members had offered a 3.75 percent base pay increase each year to association members, except for bus drivers who were offered a 4.25 percent increase last year.

Union members rejected that offer. They had wanted a 5 percent wage increase to get wages comparable to other school systems in central Maine, chief negotiator Susan Ruprecht said earlier this year.

Members also wanted a fair and adequate health benefit package, she had said.

The new contract is effective from this past Sept. 1 to Aug. 31, 2005.

Ruprecht and association President Tom Danforth were unavailable for comment Tuesday on the new deal.

Both the School Committee and the association unanimously ratified the contract, Coville said.

Voters are scheduled at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the town office to consider authorizing the School Committee to appropriate and spend up to $15,468.31 from the School Department’s fiscal year 2003 unexpended balances for payment of retroactive wage and health insurance benefits for the support staff, Coville said.

The money was set aside in the unexpended balance account after a contract wasn’t reached before the June town meeting.

Voters will also be asked to authorize the board to spend up to $27,271.25 for adult education that townspeople agreed to raise and appropriate during the June town meeting. An error in the wording of the article failed to give committee members the authority to spend the money, Coville said.

The increase to the school department for insurance cost in the new package was about 25 percent for the unit, Coville said.

The increases to taxpayers for both wages and insurance and health benefits is $15,468.31 for the first year. In the second year, that figure would increase between $10,000 to $14,000 and then would increase again by about the same amount the last year of the contract, Coville said.

The major adjustment in health insurance is during the first year of the contract. The increases for this year have already been factored into the school budget, Coville said.

Employees will receive health insurance benefits worth from $1,785 to $5,600 depending on whether they work full- or part-time, and if part-time, how many hours.

dperry@sunjournal.com

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