By: Dan Sokil

It's official, and it's about to go public.

The Souderton Area School Board voted unanimously Thursday night to make their final best offer to the district's teachers union, and the district's offer should be made public later today.

"We'd like the public to understand some of the background and rationale for the board's final best offer, especially with regard to some of the major sticking points," said school board president Bernie Currie.

The school district's three year offer contains some increases in teacher pay, reworked health care coverage, and additional steps on the teacher salary schedule.

"This board set out to reach some sort of equity, but we still have a long way to go. We're taking small steps," Currie said.

In a PowerPoint presentation using information from the 2007-08 salary table the district and the Souderton Area Education Association agreed to in 2004, Currie pointed out some of the problems with the current salary schedule the district's offer attempts to resolve.

"Our final best offer objectives include increasing the starting salary, and we'll also make an attempt to smooth out the 'bump step' and raise what we call the 'max max' step," Currie said.

The 'bump step' refers to a large jump in the salaries of Souderton's teachers as they advance from their 14th to their 15th years of service.

Under the current salary schedule, Currie said, teachers with a master's degree and additional educational credits earn raises of between $17,000 and $18,000 from step 14 to step 15, depending on their levels of educational credits earned.

The school board's proposal would add one step between 14 and 15 in 2008-09, a second step between 14 and 15 in 2009-10 and a third step in 2010-11 that would attempt to smooth out the jump between steps 14 and 15.

The "max, max," or highest salary attainable by a teacher in the district, would increase from $89,363 in 2007-08 to $90,703 in 2008-09, then to $92,064 in 2009-10 and to $93,445 in 2010-11.

The average wage in the school district in 2007-08 was approximately $41,222 and the average salary of a teacher in the district was $65,772, Currie said.

"Our offer also sets aside money for performance pay. Under our proposal, four members of the administration and four of the teachers union would meet to design and develop a performance pay program," Currie said.

The board's proposal would require three years of approximately 1.4 percent tax increases to fund the increase in teacher salaries, but the union's latest proposal would require tax increases of between 3 and 6 percent each year, Currie said.

School district solicitor Jeffrey Sultanik said the full offer will be posted publicly today on the district's Web site, and will be e-mailed in a press release to district parents.

"Once the offers are officially logged in, there will be a 10 day public comment period, and those comments will be formally collated and submitted to the board of arbitration," Sultanik said.

Both sides have agreed to arbitration on only those issues that have not already been addressed, and the arbitration panel will be able to choose from either the district's offer, the union's offer, or craft their own solution in the process.

"The arbitration process was initiated as of Sept. 19, which was the date the teachers returned to work under our accelerated arbitration proposal," Sultanik said.

"Ten days from then would be the 29th, which is this Monday, and it's my opinion that the teachers have to post their final best offer by then," he said.