The Kenosha Unified School Board Tuesday night approved a two-year contract for teachers that would increase their pay by 2 percent in the first year and 2.5 percent the second year.

The new pact with the Kenosha Education Association reflects a 3.38 increase in salaries and benefits in the first year and a 4.12 percent increase in the second year, according to Bill Johnston, the district’s finance director. Figures for the total package expenses in each year of the contract were not immediately available.

Under the new collective bargaining agreement, which covers 2009-10 and 2010-11, the teachers would keep the Wisconsin Education Association Trust as their health insurance carrier. Deductibles for their health care also would increase in the second year of the contract.

According to the agreement, during the first year, an individual teacher would pay $100 toward a $2,000 deductible for insurance, meaning the district would cover $1,900 of the amount.

A teacher’s family under the plan would pay $200 toward a $4,000 deductible, of which $3,800 is covered by the district.

In the second year, the teachers’ contributions toward the deductibles increase to $200 for an individual and $300 for a family.

Teachers contributions to health insurance premiums also would increase a little more than 4 percent as a result of the new agreement, according to Sheronda Glass, the district’s executive director of human resources. Teachers, under the contract still in effect, pay premiums of $373 a year for single coverage and $853 for family coverage.

Votes still out

While the board approved the contract, the teachers have yet to formally ratify it.

Though teachers voted Monday, not all of the absentee ballots had been counted, according to Joe Kiriaki, executive director for the Kenosha Education Association.

The contract is officially ratified, he said, after all votes are in. The results are expected by today. The small number of remaining absentee votes, however, are unlikely to affect the final outcome. Given the votes already counted, Kiriaki anticipated the contract would be ratified by an overwhelming majority.

2-0 vote

Although the board approved the contract and had favorable things to say about the final outcome, the vote was not without its own complications.

The board approved the contract by a 2-0 vote, with School Board President Pam Stevens and board member Rebecca Stevens the only members voting. That’s because they are the only members of the seven-member board who do not have spouses, relatives or themselves benefiting from the salaries or benefits negotiated in the new contract.

Gib Berthelsen, the district’s attorney, said while the other five have varying degrees of conflict of interest, a “doctrine of necessity” in voting on the contract took legal precedence. The board then had to select two members of the five, with the least conflict, to form a quorum.

Selected were Gilbert Ostman and Jo Ann Taube, both retired teachers who have indirect benefits from the contract. Excused from the table were Carl Bryan, Mary Jo Snyder and Dave Fountain, all of whom are either covered or who are directly related to someone who would be covered by the new contract.

Ostman and Taube abstained from voting. While a majority normally determines whether an agenda item is approved, in this case, a majority of the votes cast counted toward approval of the contract.

“In this case, 100 percent of the votes cast were in favor of the contract,” he said.