LINCOLN – With five months to go before the current contract expires, SAD 67 and its teachers have ratified a new two-year contract.

Officials representing the school district and the SAD 67 Education Association said the new contract would help bring teacher pay rates more in line with other schools in Penobscot and Piscataquis counties.

The new contract is effective Aug. 27 and runs through Aug. 26, 2005. It provides teachers with a 5.31 percent pay increase this August and a 5.18 percent pay increase on Aug. 27, 2004. The current contract expires on Aug. 26.

Superintendent Fred Woodman said SAD 67 teachers were among the lowest-paid in the area. “We have tried to make a move that will correct that problem,” he said.

Woodman said the school district has lost some of its good veteran teachers to other school districts, which paid between $7,000 and $10,000 more a year. “It was a big problem for us,” he said. “We have lost at least four good, solid, veteran teachers in the last two years because we just could not compete.”

Mike Salvato, the teachers’ chief negotiator, agreed. He said the new pay rates also would help the district in its efforts to hire teachers. “It’s an incentive to stay and it’s an incentive for the district to fill positions,” he said.

The new contract will raise the beginning base rate of a teacher from $22,219 to $23,587. Woodman estimates the state average to be $24,000.

He said teachers’ pay rates would increase by a minimum of about $2,000. Woodman said the new teacher pay rates would make the school district more competitive, but those rates are still not among the top in the county or the region.

Salvato said the new contract includes a new sick leave pool in which teachers collectively can donate up to a total of 20 days a year. He said if a teacher had an emergency or a serious illness or injury and had used up all of his or her sick time, the teacher could draw time from the new pool. Teachers receive 15 days of sick leave a year accumulating to 155 days.