Teachers will not share equally in new contract
Salary guide determines amount of increase for staff members
BY KATHY BARATTA Staff Writer

ENGLISHTOWN - Although Manalapan Englishtown Board of Education members are not scheduled to meet with representatives of the teachers union until April to continue discussing a new contract, whatever deal is finally struck will mean different things to different teachers.

The previous contract between the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District Board of Education and the Manalapan-Englishtown Education Association expired on June 30, 2007. Teachers are continuing to work under the terms of that previous contract as their representatives negotiate a new deal with the school board.

The sides have met about six times since September but have been unable to come to an agreement. The next negotiating session has been scheduled for April.

One thing that residents who read about the negotiations should keep in mind is that the increases being discussed for the length of the deal are not the salary increases that every teacher will receive in the new contract. The percentage increases that are often quoted by one side or the other in the negotiations actually reflects how much the overall salary budget for teachers will be increased during each year that is covered by the contract.

Depending on where a teacher is on the district's salary guide (i.e. years of service and college degrees earned) will determine a teacher's annual salary increase, according to school district Business Administrator Joseph Passiment.

In other words, if the district's overall teachers salary budget line increases by 4 percent in a given year as per the contract, an individual teacher's salary could increase by less than 4 percent or more than 4 percent as per the salary guide.

According to Passiment, as teachers approach the top of the salary guide they get more of an increase than the teachers below them on the salary guide or even at the top of the salary guide.

Manalapan-Englishtown Education Association President Ken Weber has estimated that the average salary increase for Monmouth County is 4.65 percent (representing the average increase of a school district's salary line in the budget; not the average increase in an individual teacher's salary).

Passiment said the starting salary during the 2006-07 school year in the Manalapan-Englishtown school district for a teacher who has a bachelor's degree was $43,478. The top salary for a teacher with a bachelor's degree was $77,348.

Passiment provided a history of salary increases since 1999-2000 (representing the increase in the overall teachers salary line):

1999-2000: 4.3 percent; 2000-01: 4 percent; 2001-02: 4.6 percent; 2002-03: 5.0 percent; 2003-04: 5.0 percent; 2004-05: 4.9 percent; 2005-06: 5.58 percent;

2006-07: 4.98 percent.

School board president Anthony Manisero said a 4 percent increase in the teachers' salary line has been included in the 2008-09 budget that the board expects to introduce on Feb. 26.

Board Vice President Ryan Green said the 2008-09 budget will total about $75 million. He said Manalapan property owners will not see an increase in their K-8 school tax, but Englishtown taxpayers will see an increase of five cents per $100 of assessed valuation in their K-8 school tax.

Manisero said Monmouth County's new executive county superintendent of schools, Carol Morris, will review the district's budget. Under authority granted by the state Morris, a former superintendent of schools in Manasquan, has the authority to cut items that are not mandated to be provided.

Manisero said he does not expect Morris to make any cuts.

"My guess is that nothing will be cut since we are thought to be an efficient district," the board president said.