AMHERST — The Amherst school board and teacher’s union came to terms on a new contract that will save the district about $400,000 for the 2009-10 school year.

The contract enacts a wage freeze on base salaries for teachers and raises the cost of co-pays for their prescriptions and doctors visits about $10. The health insurance savings total about $100,000 alone.

Scott Pecze, vice president of the Amherst Teachers Association, said the wage freeze and higher health insurance costs were palatable to teachers given the tough economic times. Teachers also took into consideration that voters approved a 5-year, 6.9-mill emergency operating levy in November — the district’s first new operating levy in 13 years.

“We certainly understand that the district passed a levy in these very hard economic times and the levy really didn’t make our situation real rosy, it just kind of protected us from disaster,” Pecze said. “It didn’t mean we were in line for raises.”

The new contract is only for the 2009-10 school year, which schools Superintendent Steve Sayers said was done deliberately because of the uncertainty with the state budget. State lawmakers continue to fight over how to fill a $3.2 billion hole in the state’s finances. The budget was due June 30.

“We just thought that given the uncertainty of the economy, the uncertainty of state funding where we don’t even know the budget yet at the state level, a one-year contract was appropriate,” Sayers said.

The length of the contract caused problems for some teachers who wanted a longer-term contract for more stability, Pecze said.

“We negotiated this a little longer than we would normally, and this was one of the major issues why,” he said. “It came down to the board’s reluctance to go long term because of the instability in Columbus. But we kind of agreed that with the climate out there we’d accept this in the short term now and wait to see what happens in Columbus.”

Pecze said the teacher’s union won’t be looking to make up for the wage freeze when it comes down to negotiate a new contract next year.

“We’re looking forward to getting those small increases we were used to in the past, but we’re not going to make up for the loss this year,” he said. “We won’t be going from 0 to 5 percent.”

In addition to the cost savings, the new contract also laid out other important changes, including plans to create a district-wide professional development committee comprised of teachers and administrators for the purpose of professional development for the staff.

The district is also going from having 26 pay periods in a year to 24, which will make accounting more efficient, and will initiate mandatory direct deposit for those paychecks, which will also save money and increase efficiency, Sayers said.

Contact Adam Wright at 329-7129 or awright@chroniclet.com.

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