With only a week before school starts, the Mandan School Board and the Mandan Education Association can't come to an agreement about teacher salaries. This means no new contracts for teachers.

After a special school board meeting on Thursday, the board met in executive session and decided both parties couldn't come to an agreement and that the fact-finding commission's recommendations will be printed Friday in the Mandan News. The school district and MEA are at impasse and had until Aug. 19 to come to an agreement on contracts before the fact-finding commission's recommendations would be printed in the newspaper.

Along with the recommendations, Kermit Lindstrom, chairman of the commission, also will explain to the public why the negotiations failed, and who in his opinion compromised the possibility for agreement.

After the recommendations are printed, the board will again meet in executive session to put together a final offer for the MEA. School starts Aug. 30. A date for the meeting hasn't been set.

"We were willing to negotiate last week Thursday (after the board meeting)," said David Mellen, negotiator for the MEA. "We were willing to stay at the table for as long as it would take, until this was finished, one way or another - whether it meant imposing a contract on us or coming to an agreement on one of our proposals."

This won't be the first time the school board and the MEA couldn't agree on a contract before the school year started. During the 2001-02 school year, it took the negotiation teams months before coming to an agreement in January of 2002. In 2003, the contracts were approved in early September.

Once again, the main issue dividing both sides is teacher salaries. The board originally proposed a one-line teacher salary schedule and a starting base pay of $26,500. The MEA strongly opposed the one-line salary schedule and the base pay increase. Originally they wanted to keep their current salary schedule and increase the base pay to $25,000.

Currently, the teacher salary schedule has 22 steps and six lanes. Teachers can move down steps and across lanes as they become more experienced or further their education. The current base salary is $23,000.

At the last negotiation meeting on Aug. 16, the board changed its salary proposal. They used the current teacher salary and increased the base pay to $23,630, but want to pay beginning teachers $25,331 the first year of the contract. The MEA negotiators called the new salary proposal a "back door one line salary schedule."

Since the fact-finding commission's recommendations were given to the board and the MEA on July 29, the board has refused the commission's salary recommendations. The board negotiators say the commission's salary schedule would cost the district approximately $100,000 more than they can afford.

The commission has recommended the one-line salary schedule in other school districts but said, "… The trust level between the Mandan board and the Mandan teachers indicates to the commission that the Mandan public schools are not ready to entertain a major change in compensation philosophy at this time." The new salary schedule, proposed by the commission, would provide early "payoff"for teachers who are working on a master's degree and improve starting pay for new teachers.

Mellen said it's a power and a trust issue that has prevented the negotiating teams from coming to an agreement before school starts.

"We have nothing else to lose," he said. "We'll either get them to agree on one of our proposals or they will impose their contract on us."

Mellen said that no matter what happens, the teachers will act professionally and do their job without affecting the students.

Lynn Wolf, school board president and negotiator, said not having a contract when school starts will affect teacher morale.

"It's unfortunate,"he said. "I don't like having it this way - nobody does. We'd like to have people have contracts in their hands when school starts."

Mellen said the morale of teachers in Mandan has gotten worse as the negotiation process went on during the summer. The district is losing teachers every week. He didn't have exact numbers as to how many teacher have left, but three high school teachers have left to teach in Bismarck since this summer.

Kent Hjelmstad, superintendent of the Mandan School District, said there has been an above-average turnover rate since school has gotten out this summer. It is easier for teachers to leave because no new contracts have been issued.

Until an agreement is reached, teachers in the district will operate on continuing contracts. This means they will receive the same amount of pay as their previous contract. Once a new contract is signed, any additional pay under the new contract will be awarded to them.