Teachers want to keep 'Rolls Royce' health plan

Here are some excerpts from a story in today's Courier Times ...

No mention of health care premiums can be found in the Neshaminy Federation of Teachers' contract counteroffer, which was released by the school board Monday.

If the board were to accept the union's offer, the average salary of a teacher in the Neshaminy School District, including steps, would come to $101,391 at the end of the five-year contract term in 2012, board President Ritchie Webb said Monday. The contract would be retroactive to July 1, 2008, and would end June 30, 2013.

That sum is without factoring in health benefits, perks or pay for extracurricular duties, he added. Webb said the top salary would be about $111,200, before benefits and pay for extracurricular work.

In the union's five-year contract counteroffer, teachers would get a 2.75 percent increase in base wage for the first two years, a 3 percent increase in the third and fourth years and a 3.5 percent increase in the fifth and final year. The same percentages would be applied to step increases, based on service time and education level.

O'Connor said that a "me-too clause" included in the contracts for the district's support staff and its administration stipulates members of those unions cannot receive health insurance benefits that are inferior to any other group, including teachers.

"If we accepted this, we would in turn have to give that same benefit package to every other employee in the district," he said.

Click here to read the entire article.

Also in today's paper was a letter to the editor from a Neshaminy resident who said "Shame on the Neshaminy Federation of Teachers!" You can read her opinion by following this link.
.