The state's final offer calls for no raise in the first two years of a proposed four-year contract and a 9 percent raise over the final two years. The HSTA is seeking 22 percent over the four years. Pay is the only issue still on the bargaining table. But, she said, the union will continue to negotiate and has not set a deadline for a strike vote. We're not unsympathetic to the argument that the state's making.
Teachers are taxpayers, too.
But the alternative to not settling on an adequate salary increase is not pleasant to contemplate. Yogi would not say how much more the state is willing to offer the teachers. Gov. Ben Cayetano has said the state has no more money to offer the teachers above the latest proposal. But that's why we need third parties to help us through this process. Yogi and Husted said the mediator may be appointed on Friday, and the two sides would begin meeting immediately after.