GUILDERLAND — Members of the Guilderland Teachers’ Association — over 100 of them — turned out in force at Tuesday’s school board meeting, many of them wearing red, the school color. The union’s contract ran out nearly a year go, on June 30, 2014.

“We know our proposal is being presented tonight,” Erin McNamara, the union’s president, told The Enterprise as the board adjourned to an executive session. “We wanted the board members to see our faces.”

The state’s Open Meetings Law allows contract negotiations to be discussed in closed session.

Although the teachers did not speak to the board on Tuesday, McNamara told The Enterprise they value what the board does and “hope that is returned.”

Asked how the large, silent presence of teachers made her feel, Board President Barbara Fraterrigo said on Wednesday, “We welcome people to come to our meetings any time. We’re glad they were there. Erin wrote ahead of time...I enjoyed seeing them wearing our school colors.”

This is the second time in a row that negotiations have outlasted the length of the teachers’ contract. The current three-year pact was approved in June of 2012, a year-and-a-half after its expiration date, and marked a departure from the district’s longstanding tradition of negotiating without legal counsel at the bargaining table.

The last time around, the district declared an impasse after a year, leading the Public Employment Relations Board to appoint a mediator.

“We’re trying to avoid that,” McNamara said of an impasse.

“I’m optimistic we won’t have to go there,” Lin Severance, the district’s assistant superintendent for human resources, told The Enterprise on Wednesday. She and Neil Sanders, the assistant superintendent for business, are negotiating for the district.

Asked about the likelihood of the district declaring an impasse this time, Fraterrigo said, “I sure hope not. We hope that isn’t going to be the case.”

Fraterrigo went on, “We, as a board, have to balance the taxpayers’ needs with the teachers’ needs....Breadwinners have to put food on the table and teachers have to educate kids.”

Although Guilderland had long used a collaborative approach in negotiating with teachers, this time, from the start, Severance said, there were lawyers at the bargaining table. “It’s kind of a holdover,” she said. “There were so many APPR changes in the last round of negotiations,” she said of the state-required Annual Professional Performance Review.

“We started this contract session with our attorney in place. They have a labor relations specialist,” which, she said, “facilitates a speedier process.”

Severance estimated there have been “six or seven” negotiation sessions so far. The state evaluation of teachers has not been a sticking point, she said. “APPR requirements have actually been worked out. The laws dictate what we need to do.” Referring to Superintendent Marie Wiles and McNamara, she said, “Those aspects have been buttoned up between Marie, Erin, and State Education.”

Severance concluded on contract negotiations, “We’ve had some productive sessions. It always comes down to compensation.”

Although the current contract specifies step raises — 2.4 percent in the first year, 1.5 percent in the second year, and 1.4 percent in the third year — there are no salary increases on top of that as there had been in years’ past. The previous three-year contract had given annual raises ranging from 4.4 to 4.7 percent each year.

Guilderland teachers, year by year, progress up a 23-step schedule, where they get an automatic increase in salary.  Those at the bottom step earned $45,200 the first year of the contract while those at the top step earned $74,131. In the third year of the contract, the teachers on the lowest rung earn $47,600 and those on the top earn $73,206.

The Triborough Amendment to the state’s Taylor Law allows teachers to continue to get step increases based on their last contract.

The state-imposed tax-levy limit changed the negotiations at Guilderland. Richard Weisz, a former Guilderland School Board president, since retired, said at the time the current contract was negotiated, “I think the 2-percent cap is changing the way we look at everything…Triborough would have guaranteed the teachers things they gave up…I’m glad the teachers, in the end, worked with us to essentially save jobs.”

Guilderland had cut 227.6 posts since 2008. But, its $93.7 million budget proposal for next year restores some jobs while staying under the levy limit, both because of lower retirement contributions and added state aid.

Fraterrigo said on Wednesday of the state-imposed tax-levy limit, “When you’re so restricted, it ties your hands.”

While the district in recent years has been pushing to change the share workers pay for health care — most pay 20 percent while the district shoulders 80 percent — the current GTA contract leaves the 20/80 split in tact.

The GTA is the largest of the district’s dozen unions; it has nearly 500 members, which accounts for close to half of the district’s employees. Typical of school budgets, about three-quarters of the current budget as well as the budget proposed for next year pays for salaries and benefits.

Maceo Dubose, the GTA president at the time the current contract was negotiated, described the agreement as providing “some short-term relief for the district.” He said, “It’s structured to save the district some money.”

McNamara, a high school English teacher who became president of the GTA in July, said Tuesday, “This is my first rodeo.”

McNamara said morale has suffered because of “the convergence of what’s going on at the state level and having this at the district level.”

Some of the state initiatives she named were the APPR, which requires teachers to be judged in part by their students’ test scores; the standardized tests themselves; and the hastily rolled out Common Core standards.

Further, she said, “Media campaigns and the public image that has vilified teachers” has hurt morale. “We’re not part of the problem,” she said. “We’re looking to be the solution.”

She declined to name sticking points in the negotiations but went on to talk about the reasons teachers feel raises are warranted.

“Our district is consistently among the best in the area,” McNamara said. “We’ve received state and national accolades. We’re doing our part for students, which is the most important thing.

“It would be nice to,” she said, stopping to find the right words, “to know that others feel we’re deserving as well.”

Despite the drawn-out negotiations, McNamara said, “I feel great about what our union has done this year.” She said the members had become more unified and had been part of a statewide movement. About 300 people, mostly teachers, attended an April 15 session at Guilderland High School, hosted by the district, where Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy and a representative from Senator George Amedore’s office listened to their concerns. McNamara said teachers were “thoughtful in their comments.”

“Anyone who’s an educator has to be careful,” McNamara stated about what teachers can say in the classroom. “We can’t tell our students, we can’t advocate. We are public employees.”

She went on, “I give a lot of credit to the parents in our community. They’re looking to get information to make informed decisions. It’s been the impetus for a great pushback… against what seems to be these test-and-punish agendas.”

With April’s state tests, required for students in grades 3 through 8, a statewide opt-out movement gathered force. About 17.5 percent of Guilderland’s elementary students did not take the English exams and a little over 20 percent did not take the math tests.

“There is an added pressure…It directly ties to each individual teacher, ” McNamara said of the new state testing with links to teachers’ job evaluations.

She hastened to add, “Teachers aren’t opposed to testing as long as the tests are used to improve education, and inform the progress of students.”

McNamara concluded, “Public educators are the backbone of what will determine the future of our state…We’re just going to keep on doing what we need to do on behalf of our district and our students — they are what matter most.”

Fraterrigo, on Wednesday, said she could see how teacher morale would be eroded by the state’s approach and she singled out Andrew Cuomo in particular. “With the governor telling you how terrible you folks are,” she said of teachers, that could be hurtful. She went on about Guilderland, “We don’t agree with the governor at all.” She commented on the unfairness of tying teacher evaluations “to a one-time exam.”

“The governor seems to be unbending and not listening to people in the field,” said Fraterrigo.

She concluded of contract negotiations at Guilderland, “We’re both negotiating in a good spirit. I’m hopeful by the end of the school year, we’ll have a contract...We certainly, certainly appreciate everything our teachers do.”

May 19 elections

Tuesday’s meeting opened with a presentation on the May 19 elections. Guilderland school district voters will decide on a $93,689,600 budget proposition for next year. The 2.76-percent tax-levy increase is under the state-set limit, requiring a simple majority, of half the voters, for approval.

“Balancing competing priorities is not easy work,” said Superintendent Wiles.

Voters will also decide on a $1,125,000 proposition to buy 11 school buses and a plow truck; about half of the costs are reimbursed by the state.

And, they will vote on a $1,160,000 capital improvement proposition to pay for upgrades to the high school auditorium and to replace the lights in the football field.

A similar proposition was narrowly defeated in the fall of 2013. Guilderland put up two propositions at that time. The $17.3 million bond to upgrade the district’s seven buildings and improve security and technology passed by 53.2 percent of the vote while the $846,300 plan to upgrade the auditorium and field lighting was defeated by 50.8 percent.

Currently, Wiles said during her initial budget presentation, students cannot see their work in the auditorium because the lighting is poor; seating is not up to the standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act; repair parts are no longer available for the seats; and the control systems for on-stage lighting and sound are substandard.

There are safety and liability concerns for the wooden light poles and lights on the football field, Wiles said; the base of each pole was buried 28 years ago and their condition can’t be determined, she said. Each pole supports more than a ton of light fixtures, suspended 60 feet in the air.

If the projects were passed and submitted together, the district would get 65 percent, or $750,000, in state aid, according to Sanders. He also said the $17.3 million bond project will have workers at the schools over the next two summers and doing the proposition projects at the same time could make the bidding more cost effective.

“We were out there an hour ago,” said Wiles, as the board had toured the auditorium and the football field on Tuesday before its meeting. “It’s breezy…You can see them swaying in the wind,” she said of the light poles. “I didn’t stand under them. It’s alarming.”

Finally, voters will decide among five candidates vying for three open seats on the board — Catherine Barber, Timothy Burke, Nicholas Fahrenkopf, Christine Hayes, and Seema Rivera.

Issues-based profiles of the candidates are online at AltamontEnterprise.com along with in-depth articles on the proposed budget.

Reviewing tables of figures, Wiles said what struck her most was “the decreasing number of voters.” The town of Guilderland, which makes up the lion’s share of the district, has 22,245 registered voters. In 2009, Wiles reported, 3,417 district residents voted on the school budget; last year, 2,637 voted. That is not even 12 percent of voters.

The polls are open May 19 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the five district elementary schools.