School district and teachers' union representatives finished presentations to a special magistrate with two issues still undecided: whether the district must pay step increases and how base pay for teachers with advanced degrees is calculated.

 

Mark Sherman, a Houston-based arbitrator and mediator, heard almost six hours of testimony Friday at Locklin Technical Institute in Milton after having heard more than 11 hours of testimony Oct. 19.

 

Santa Rosa County School District officials want to suspend step payments for 2009-2010 and negotiate future increases annually because back-to-back years' of decreasing revenue have stressed its finances. Their counterparts with Santa Rosa Professional Educators -- the teachers' union -- claim the district is exaggerating its budget problems to avoid paying additional salary they say the teachers already have earned.

 

The district currently is paying step increases as required by the current contract, but would stop payments if the district gets the contract change it is requesting.

 

Updated briefs from union and district officials must be postmarked by Dec. 7 and exchanged with one another and submitted to Sherman. He will study the briefs and make non-binding recommendations to the sides by Jan. 4. The negotiating teams have 20 days to accept or reject Sherman's recommendations.

 

For more details about negotiations, see the Nov. 5 edition of Navarre Press.