FULLERTON : Teachers, District Far Apart on Contract

Fullerton Joint Union High School District and its teachers union are making little progress toward an agreement on a new contract, with the union seeking a 10.1% overall compensation increase this year and the district offering a 4.1% package.

A meeting between representatives of the 554-member Fullerton Secondary Teachers Assn. and the district ended last week with few negotiating points resolved. They will meet again Oct. 30.

“It’s moving a bit slowly,” district spokeswoman Shirley Finton said.

The district’s package includes a 1.54% increase in health and welfare benefits and 1.58% increase in “step and column” advances, the cost of paying employees as they gain in seniority year to year. The remainder of the increase would go to salaries.

The teachers union, meanwhile, wants a 10.1% package that includes a 1.54% increase in health and welfare benefits and 6% in salary increases, said Bill Rogers, the president of the union and a teacher at Troy High School.

“We’re quite a ways away” from a settlement, he said.

He added that the union sees no need to increase “step and column” advances because a large number of teachers have retired and have been replaced by beginning employees.

Teachers are continuing to work under the terms of a three-year contract that expired at the end of the 1990-91 school year.