Revere teachers save 7 jobs with pay deferral agreement

REVERE – School Superintendent Paul Dakin said an agreement to delay part of a negotiated raise for teachers by a year will save $420,000 and keep seven teachers employed in the face of next year’s state spending cuts.The agreement between the Revere Teachers Association and the School Committee reduces a 3 percent raise negotiated for 2010 to 2 percent and adds 1 percent to a 1 percent raise agreed upon for 2011.”This was an unselfish thing to do in order to save the jobs of colleagues,” Committee member Carol Tye said.The vote came in the wake of public safety and other municipal unions voting to defer negotiated pay raises to help stave off layoffs.Schools so far have been spared cuts but that trend could end once the scale of Fiscal 2010 spending cuts become clear.Dakin oversaw $1.5 million in school spending reductions so far this year, mostly through energy savings and layoffs of 13 paraprofessionals who assist teachers and secretaries. Schools have mostly eliminated night time events to save on heating and lighting costs and reduced the amount of time boilers operate during the school day.Dakin said the current $60.2 million school budget matches the minimum school spending threshold and the spending amount required to meet state education goals. He is hoping federal funding, including reading assistance and special education money, reduces a $5.2 million spending gap to $641,000.The teachers’ vote could offset this remaining shortfall and similar action yet to be taken by unionized school administrators could shrink the gap.