The Legislative Council accepted a school administrator contract with a total of 8.85 percent in increases over the next three years.

By taking no action at its October 18 meeting, the council accepted the contract, which had a total increase significantly less than the average contract of 9.37 percent negotiated by other Connecticut towns during this year. State Statute says that if the council wanted to reject the contract, it would need to notice a special meeting specifically for the purpose of voting on the contract. Since the consensus among councilmen was that the town would do significantly worse in arbitration, it decided not to set such a meeting and thus passively accepted the contract.

“Even if we were to reject the contract, we would not do any better than this,” said Councilman Ryan Knapp.

Superintendent of Schools Chris Melillo agreed, saying, “as a municipality, we don’t want to go to arbitration unless we have a very egregious contract.”

According to Knapp and Melillo, arbitration will look at Newtown’s increase relative to other towns, and since Newtown’s was significantly less and Newtown is generally regarded as more affluent than average, the salary increases would be substantially higher and other concessions gained by the school district might not make it through arbitration.

There are 18 administrators in the contract, the principals of Newtown High School, Newtown Middle School, Reed Intermediate School, and all five elementary school principals; the director of Pupil Services; the assistant principals at the intermediate school and middle school; three special education supervisors; the director of Visual and Performing Arts, and the Athletic Director.

Melillo explained the major changes to the contract point by point, noting that many of the items that were increasing were given as concessions to keep the salary increases down, which overall will save the town money as salaries are the biggest budget driver.

With Newtown administrators having one of the highest insurance premium contributions in the state, second overall, Melillo said that he didn’t negotiate salary increases against the insurance contribution. The contribution will increase from 25 percent to 25.5 percent in year three of the contract.

Administrators will receive a $250 additional annuity per year towards their 401K accounts. For those with five to nine years of service, the annuity will increase from $1,000 to $1,250 in year one, to $1,500 in year two, and to $1,750 in year three. For those with ten or more years of service, the annuity will increase from $2,000 to $2,250 in year one, to $2,500 in year two, and to $2,750 in year three.

For the athletic director, ten extra days he was working during the summer months have been codified in the contract.

The special education supervisors work ten months but then get paid an hourly rate for the Extended School Year program in old contracts. This meant that they were getting paid more per year than they would with a 12-month work year. The new contract moved them to a 12-month work year.

The contract added a wellness incentive of $100 per individual coverage plan and $200 per family coverage plan for completing yearly physical examinations.

“This will help stop some catastrophic claims by catching things early,” said Melillo.

Long-term disability increased from $6,500 to $10,000 per year.

While administrators did not get any extra sick leave, they did get up to five days designated as family leave time.

“If you have a sick child, you’re calling out sick,” said Melillo. “This codifies that.”

Administrators are paid over ten months but can choose to have their salary stretched over 12 months. They are not paid anything extra, but rather their salary is divided over 12 months instead of ten.

Lastly, the time to schedule a grievance hearing before the Board of Education was increased from 14 to 30 days, to give the board additional time to get a quorum.

Melillo noted that while the full effects are not yet seen in Newtown, there is a teacher shortage across the country. The way it is currently affecting Newtown is that the town is “losing teachers to the gold coast,” while hiring teachers who were working in Danbury and other urban areas. He noted that New Haven started the school year short 100 teachers and Bridgeport was short 50 teachers.

“We’re robbing Peter to pay Paul,” said Melillo, who noted he lost “one of [his] best teachers” to Westport, where the teacher will make $40,000 to $50,000 more. “Before, Westport wouldn’t be grabbing highly experienced teachers, they’d be hiring new hires at one-third to one-half the salary. But new teachers are hard to find.”

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Associate Editor Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.