Bismarck Tribune

By KAYLA COGDILBy KAYLA COGDILL

The Mandan School Board held a special meeting Thursday night and decided to give the Mandan Education Association another chance to have their questions answered.

After MEA members voted 111-57 against accepting the final contract proposed by the board, the board negotiators are offering to meet informally on Tuesday with MEA negotiators to discuss teacher questions. The board is hoping the MEA will vote again before Sept. 15, when there will be another special school board meeting at 7 p.m. at the Central Administration Building, 309 Collins Ave.

At the board meeting next Thursday, the teachers can either accept the contract or it becomes unilateral, which means it's imposed on them.

Lynn Wolf, president of the Mandan School Board and negotiator, said he would like the board and the MEA to come to an agreement on Thursday.

"The final offer has been made, but we want to answer their questions," said Wolf. "We want them to be informed."

The board voted 9-0 to authorize the board negotiation team to declare that good faith negotiations have ended after next Thursday before a unilateral contract is presented.

The main question the MEA has is about the salary schedule presented by the board. The board says it used the Fact Finding Commission's salary schedule, but changed the amount of new money put into the schedule. The MEA disagrees with the board.

Joe Lukach, business manager for the Mandan School District, said the teachers will receive a 10.6 percent average salary increase over the next two years. The district calculates the salary increase in two forms. The first form is a salary increase to the base of the salary schedule, which has 22 steps and six lanes for teachers to move around in as they gain more experience and education. The second form is the increase teachers receive for every year they teach.

Even though the teachers always receive more money because of the additional years of experience, the district counts this as an increase because of the additional money put into the base, which increases the amount they receive for every year for their experience.

The MEA calculates the salary increase for the first year to be 3.2 percent, not 5.3 percent as the district claims.