Bemidji School Board approves new contract with BEA

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

Oct. 22, 1999

By Devlyn Brooks

The Bemidji School Board approved a new contract with the Bemidji Education Association Monday at its regular October meeting, giving the district's 440-pluse teachers more than a 10 percent raise over two years.

The plan, which the teachers union ratified last week, includes a 5.9 percent raise in salaries and benefits the first year of the contract, and a 4.8 percent raise the second year.

This raise includes all costs including steps, schedule increases, insurance, TRA, FICA and other fringe benefits. The actual salary schedule increases include a 2.75 percent raise the first year and a 3 percent raise the second.

Other major aspects of the contract included:

• The insurance menu was improved by $500 for each year of the contract.

• And the salary for the 1999-2000 school year begins at $25,482 and goes up to $51,731. The second year of the contract begins at $26,246 and goes up to $53,282.

Other aspects included a wording change in retiree fringe benefits to include more employees, a simplification of the sick leave bank, a plan to purchase personal leave at the rate of $90 per day, a requirement that teachers have to hold the license for which they were hired, an increase in the amount paid to teachers who work during their prep time and an increase in retiree insurance by $50 per teacher per year.

Board member Neil Skogerboe, who sat on the contract negotiations committee, characterized the negotiations as "tough but honorable."

He added that he appreciated that the teachers union was willing to compromise and that the process was already completed in September.

Board Chairwoman Nancy Eubanks, who sat on the negotiations committee for the first time, said the process seemed forthright, with nobody hiding an agenda.

BEA leadership said the process was as "agreeable" as possible in contract negotiations.