AMERICAN FORK — The Alpine teachers union has agreed to smaller pay raises in exchange for the district footing the entire health insurance increase.

A majority of members of the Alpine Education Association voted Thursday to ratify a contract, which also includes changes to retirement health insurance. The contract is for the next school year.

This year, the Legislature increased per-pupil money for students by 6 percent, and most of Utah's 40 school districts have been able to increase teacher salaries.

In Alpine, however, teachers will receive a 3 percent cost-of-living pay raise, said Marla Hendrickson, vice president of the education association.

Health insurance premiums in Alpine will increase 10.19 percent, said Paul Olson, the district's human resources director. The district will fund the entire increase, without the district's 2,500 teachers having to make premium co-payments.

"We took the lesser percent (pay raise) to cover that," Hendrickson said. "But that's what our teachers wanted. They didn't want to start a premium (co-payments)."

As with other school districts in the state, Alpine, Utah's fourth-largest district, had been paying retirement benefits as they came due.

New requirements by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board require the district to save for future liabilities, which means that the district must cut back to afford current payouts and savings for future retirement benefits.

Teachers and their spouses receive health insurance for up to six years after retirement.

However, during negotiations, the employees unions and district agreed that employees hired after March 1, 2006, will not qualify for health insurance after retirement, Olson said.

The new qualifications for health insurance after retirement depend on age, years of service and, in some cases, years of employment for the state.

"Basically, anybody who has less than 20 years in the district will lose a year or two of retirement insurance compared to our old package that we used to offer employees," Olson said.

Union representatives met several times over the past three months with district administrators to discuss contract issues.

"It was a great negotiations, by the way," Hendrickson said. "It was probably one of the most amicable negotiations we've experienced with the school district and the school board. And we settled earlier. This is one of the early ones. Last year, I believe we were in our last week (before the school year ended) before ratifying."

The Provo School District and the Provo Education Association will be the last to settle in Utah County. Negotiations were late to start because the employees unions formed "benefits committees" to study the issues.

Kerry Smith, Provo District's business administrator, does not believe that a settlement will be reached by June when the Provo District Board of Education must pass its budget for the next fiscal year.

Smith said he'll add extra money to the proposed budget for salaries and benefits to take care of increases that the employees unions and district may reach.

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E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com