Residents Will Be Able to Comment on SV Board’s, Teachers’ ‘Best’ Contract Offers

Members of the public will have an opportunity to comment on both the Saucon Valley School District’s and the Saucon Valley Education Association’s final best offers in the enduring teacher contract dispute that is now about to enter non-binding arbitration, school board solicitor Jeffrey Sultanik said Monday.

In an emailed statement, Sultanik said the 10-day public comment period will follow the posting of the association’s and the board’s offers on or around June 10.

The board is expected to vote on its final best contract offer at its June 9 meeting.

That offer, Sultanik said, is expected to be consistent with its Oct. 8, 2014 contract offer, which itself was largely based upon the 2013 recommendations of independent fact-finder Rochelle Kaplan.

The Oct. 8, 2014 offer was “updated to reflect changes and also added two (2) additional years to the fact finder’s recommendation,” he said.

The teachers’ final best offer could be based on their May 7, 2015 off-the-record contract offer, which was rejected by the school board.

However, “the board remains very concerned that the association’s last best contract offer will be more expensive (than that offer),” Sultanik said.

“Just in the area of salary and column costs alone (the May 7 SVEA offer) represented a cost of $2.8 million more than the board’s Feb. 26, 2015 bottom line proposal and almost $4 million more than the board’s expected last best offer based upon the Oct. 8, 2014 proposal,” he added.

Members of the public who wish to comment on either offer will be able to do so by U.S. mail.

Comments should be sent to David Bonenberger, Business Manager, Saucon Valley School District, 2097 Polk Valley Road, Hellertown, PA 18055-2400.

“Mr. Bonenberger will collect the public comments and forward them to Arbitrator (Timothy) Brown,” Sultanik said.

Comments cannot be submitted via email.

“Because of the lack of ability to verify emailing commenters being district residents and the ease of sending multiple email comments to the arbitrator by the same individual, the parties agreed to only send written letters to the arbitrator,” Sultanik explained.

“The board encourages all members of the public to author communications to Mr. Bonenberger so that Arbitrator Brown will have a sense about the public position on these very public negotiations,” he said in the statement. “As part of every communication, the board suggests that the author identify whether or not they are a teacher, whether or not they are employed by the district, or whether or not they are related to anyone employed by the district so that Arbitrator Brown will understand whether or not there is any inherent conflict in the authoring of these communications.”

“The board also remains hopeful that the association membership, (SVEA attorney) Mr. (Andrew) Muir, and (SVEA chief negotiator) Mr. (Rich) Simononis will actively involve the new association leadership of Vivian Demko and Robert Kachmar in this process, as the process thusfar in the non-binding arbitration process has only involved Mr. Muir and Mr. Simononis to the best of the knowledge of the district,” he added.

A closed hearing before Brown is scheduled to be held July 29, with a decision expected to be issued around Aug. 19.