SPANISH FORK — The debate over Nebo School District teacher contracts was as heated as the sweltering school cafeteria where teachers met to ratify it.

For most of the approximately 100 teachers in attendance at Monday night's ratification meeting, though, the good things about the contract — including a 2 percent raise in base pay and paid time off — outweighed the bad. The Nebo Teachers' Association voted 2 to 1 to accept the contract.

If the contract were sent back to the drawing board, teachers grumbled, teachers would only lose the benefits the contract outlined. And Jeff Alexander, president of the Nebo Teachers' Association, seemed skeptical the school district would budge.

"There is only 'x' amount of money, period," Alexander said. "There is no magic money tree to pick money off of. All we can do is move it around."

Nebo schoolteachers will get $1,938 of the $2,500 lawmakers promised every Utah educator and $931 of the $1,000 one-time bonus. The remainder of the money will come when the Legislature supplies it, Alexander said.

Additionally, the contract fully funds pay raises based on teaching experience and education.

Teachers cheered when Alexander announced the district will foot the bill to pay substitutes when teachers take personal leave. Currently, teachers pay $45 a day to take time off.

"And here's the kick: There's no kick to it," Alexander said. "You can use all the leave days you've got."

The school district also agreed to pay the fees associated with relicensure and certification tests, and increased the hourly rate for helping out with extracurricular activities, like supervising school dances, by $1.

For Alexander, who works extra hours to teach drivers education at Payson High School, that means a raise of nearly $700 per year.

Many teachers at the meeting argued, however, that the school district used the Legislature-mandated $2,500 pay raise — which is not guaranteed to continue annually — as an excuse not to raise teachers' base pay.

Alexander said the district used money that might have gone to raising teachers' salaries to raise the pay rates of other school workers, like janitors and cafeteria workers.

The bonus was meant as a gift and not a negotiation, said Brent Finch, who has taught drafting and photography at Springville High School for 29 years.

"We are the ones teaching the students," Finch said. "I feel like the district is looking away from us. They are looking at getting the building clean, not at getting test scores up."

And even the 2 percent raise in base pay, which is lower than past years, came at a price.

For the first time in the district's history, Nebo school teachers will be required to pay a portion of their insurance premium. Traditionally, the money for insurance comes directly from the per-student money allocated to the school by the Legislature.

By agreeing to require teachers to pay some insurance costs out of pocket, Alexander said, negotiators were able to barter an extra 1.5 percent increase in base pay.

"We are just reshuffling the money," he said. "You have to pay for insurance one way or another."

Depending on a teacher's pay scale, though, even the full 2 percent increase allocated in the contract may not cover the insurance costs, teachers argued.

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E-mail: estuart@desnews.com