The Rutland City teachers’ union and school board have ratified a new contract for the district’s teachers — the final end to a year-and-a-half of prolonged negotiations and tensions.
The two groups had averted a strike, hours before it was set to begin May 14, when an eight-hour marathon meeting ended in a new contract agreement. On Thursday, the union voted to ratify it, and on Tuesday afternoon, the school board did the same.
“We’re collectively breathing a sigh of relief,” union President Sue Tanen said. “I think in the end, when we came together that last day, there was true collective bargaining, where we worked together and talked about what we needed.”
The contract includes teacher salary increases of 5.7% for the 2024-25 school year, which will be delivered in a retroactive lump sum; 5.8% for the 2025-26 school year; and 5.6% for 2026-27.
It includes an addition of 10 days of paid parental leave, which “for us, was huge,” Tanen said, since teachers otherwise used up paid sick days or took unpaid leave. The new contract also includes one additional sick day, for a total of 11 paid sick days.
Teacher salary increases became the sticking point in the negotiations: The union sought increases that would keep their pay on par with that of other educators in the state, initially proposing annual increases of 15%, 10% and 10% across three years.
The school board maintained that the district’s unique 10.3% pension plan should make up for lower salaries. The board also argued its salary proposals were confined by the city’s education budgets, which Rutland voters approve each year — $63.83 million for the 2024-25 school year and $67.18 million for the 2025-26 school year.
After a year of negotiations, the two sides worked with an independent fact-finder, who recommended a salary increase of 4.8% for 2024-25, 5% for 2025-26 and 5% for 2026-27. While the union accepted these terms, they disagreed with the board on whether that percentage increase was inclusive of or in addition to the annual step up in wages faculty members typically receive. The new salaries outlined in the contract include those annual increases.
The district has now called back employees who received reduction in force notices earlier this spring, a preemptive move by the district in the case that it needed to make layoffs to keep salary increases balanced with the budget. However, it decided to not fill eight positions for the next school year to keep salary costs down, according to the district Superintendent Bill Olsen.
“We don’t think this is that painful in the sense that we’re not really cutting programming,” he said. Those reductions are set to be spread across the entire district in an effort to absorb the impacts of consolidation.
The district is facing approximately $600,000 in cost reductions for next school year, according to the lead negotiator on the school board, Charlene Seward.
After such drawn-out negotiations, Seward said she hopes they begin contract talks earlier for the next round — which is set to begin in fall 2026, for the 2027-30 school years. That way, the board and teachers can have something prepared by the time voters go to the polls in March and can host negotiations in an open forum setting.
“Finding ways to be transparent about the information is important,” she said. “Feel like if this is going to be an open forum, then everybody would understand where we’re coming from and know that we’re trying to be respectful and prudent with the community.”
“I think the lack of understanding — of what’s on the table and of what the proposals were — created division that didn’t need to have to be there,” Seward said.
