CANYON CITY – Dozens of Grant County school employees and school board members breathed sighs of relief this month, as most of the county’s school districts finished negotiating staff contracts.

In spite of difficult economic times, most school boards mustered modest increases for employee insurance and wages. The jury remained out at Grant School District No. 4, Prairie City, where the teachers’ union and school board continued discussing salaries and health insurance benefits. The negotiating teams met on Sept. 17 to barter over the third year of a three-year contract. Negotiators for the classified or support staff in that district are idle this year; the contract for those non-teaching staff expires in 2006 and is not the subject of current talks, according to principal and superintendent Kevin Purnell.

“It’s tight, but I think everybody’s tight at this point,” Purnell said of the climate for bargaining.

In Grant School District No. 3, classified employees settled on a contract with the school board, and staff there expressed their own worries about tough financial days ahead.

“There are mixed feelings concerning the new contract,” stated Chris McKinley, Mt. Vernon Middle School employee and president of Blue Mountain Federation of Teachers, the classified staff’s union. “We appreciate the district’s insurance offer for this year. Our concern is that the district’s offer for next year will not cover the increased health costs.”

Sherry Rose, deputy clerk for the school district, acknowledged that increases in health insurance premiums continue to outstrip the district’s ability to share the cost. However, school officials blame erratic enrollment and other factors for eroding the district’s fund balance from $800,000 to $270,000.

“It’s going to be a tight budget,” Rose warned.

With insurance premiums rising by about 15-17 percent each year, both the district and the employee absorb extra costs that hurt both the employer and employee, she said.

In the district’s settlement with classified staff last week, the union accepted an offer for the district to increase its share of monthly insurance premiums by nearly 35 percent.

Last year, classified staff members paid premiums ranging from $62.55 a month to $193.65 a month, depending on the health insurance plan chosen by the employee. (Classified staff can choose from $300 and $100 deductibles in the respective plans, Rose said.) Last year, the school district agreed to pay $482 against the employee’s monthly premium.

This year during negotiations, classified staff feared they would see their share of the monthly premium rise to as much as $233.80 a month. With their salaries hovering around $9 to $13 an hour, classified employees said they would be hard pressed to pay this. The school board agreed to increase its share from $482 to $650 a month and from $650 to $715 a month in the second year of the contract, a 10 percent increase, Rose reported.

“The majority of the money to fund this increase is coming from our savings from PERS,” Rose said, referring to the Public Employees Retirement System, which the Oregon Legislature has overhauled to try and reduce its unfunded liability.

District 3 anticipated a $60,000 savings on the district’s PERS payments for classified staff, Rose said. However, public employees have challenged the state’s changes to the PERS accrual levels in court, so the savings could be shortlived, she warned.

On salaries, both sides agreed to a pay freeze for classified staff in the two years of the contract.

The District 3 school board’s negotiating team also reached a contract settlement with certified or teaching staff last week. Teachers received a 10 percent increase in the insurance payment by the district. The scale for increases was ratified as follows: $746 (2003-2004), $820 (2004-2005), $902 (2005-2006) and $992 (2006-2007). Last year’s cap on district monthly co-payment was $678.

Teachers also agreed to no wage increase this year but a 3 percent wage increase in the next three years of the four-year contract, Rose reported.

Other school districts acted as follows:

Dayville School – No update was available.

-Long Creek School – Both negotiating teams settled on a contract that grants staff a 2.9 percent step increase on pay and an extra $50 contribution from the district against employees’ monthly insurance premiums. The district’s cost-share on insurance rose from $644 to $750 a month, according to superintendent Lloyd Hartley.

Monument School –The teachers’ union and school board negotiators settled a three-year contract. Teachers will receive a 2 percent raise each year of the contract and a 5 percent increase in the district’s insurance contribution each of the first two years of the contract, deputy clerk Rhonda Henslee reported. With the adjustment, the district agreed to increase its monthly contributions toward insurance from a range of $245-$647 to a range of $257-$679 toward a teacher’s premium. Total premiums are expected to range from $307-$841 on plans offering a $200 deductible, Henslee reported. A two-year contract for classified staff is pending.