(Hour 2a)
In a facebook message to Girard at Large last night, Manchester Ward Ten School Board Member John Avard, chairman of the Negotiations Committee, released staggering new figures on the teacher’s contract.
If Manchester’s teachers accept the deal offered by the school district and switched from their health insurance plan to the available Health Savings Account, they would see a net increase of cash in their pocket of nearly nine hundred thousand dollars once the estimated increases in benefit costs are deducted from the proposed pay raises. He says that staying status quo without a contract for the coming year will collectively cost teachers almost seventy thousand dollars in increased benefit costs.
When asked what the numbers would be if teachers accepted the city’s offer while maintaining their current health plan, meaning they didn’t switch to the Health Savings Account, Avard wrote he hadn’t specifically worked those numbers, but estimated that plan changes in the aggregate would exceed the proposed pay raise by about six hundred thousand dollars, which, by my math is between five and six hundred dollars per teacher.
Plus, in this clip you’ll hear why Rich thinks Manchester’s teachers are out of touch with their private sector counterparts. Great benefits, COLA and pay raises, what’s the deal, teachers?
