Lake Oswego District agrees to new one-year deal with teachers union

The Lake Oswego District approved a new teacher’s contract during its Monday, July 15 meeting.

The one-year contract with the Lake Oswego Educator Association includes a 4.05% cost-of-living-adjustment increase and a 6.95% increase because of the elimination of the PERS “pick up.”

The pick up referred to school districts paying into teacher’s Public Employees Retirement System accounts, which employees must now pay into on their own. The district said it was a matter of fairness so that all teachers have the same retirement benefit regardless of experience or tier-level in the district.

LOSD teachers are the final employee group to receive the increase and take on responsibility of contributing to their PERS IAP.

“Because of the uncertainty of funding for the next year we have decided to go with a one-year contract,” said Superintendent Jennifer Schiele.

The “uncertainty” of future school funding stems from possible changes to the state school funding formula. Gov. Tina Kotek has spoken extensively about the need for a restructuring of public school funding to maintain the staffing and service for school districts across the state.

The district expects negotiations with the Lake Oswego School Employees Association to conclude later this month and reflect a similar cost-of-living-adjustment increase. LOSEA represents classified staff such as nurses or literacy specialists in the district. It has also been the policy of LOSD to extend compensation and wage commitments to non-represented employees for the same timeframe as those represented by a union.