DEXTER – The SAD 46 Education Association has approved a new contract that was ratified last week by district directors.

The ratification by the association on Monday morning ended months of tense negotiations between the board and the association over salaries and insurance. Still unresolved is an issue concerning retroactive pay that was in the previous contract. That matter went to arbitration, and both parties are waiting for the arbitrator’s report.

“We’re looking forward to working with a settled contract and not that cloud of uncertainty,” Ted Nokes, the association’s chief negotiator, said Tuesday. “It’s good to be looking forward.”

He said not all members of the association were in favor of the contract, especially regarding insurance, but the majority ruled.

“I think for the community, for the teachers, for the school board, it’s a great thing,” SAD 46 Superintendent Kevin Jordan said Tuesday, of the contract settlement. “It takes into account community needs, and it also takes into account how we value teachers.”

The new contract calls for a less expensive insurance plan but one in which teachers will pay more, according to both Jordan and Nokes. The district will pay 80 percent of the health premiums, and teachers will pay the remaining 20 percent for a Choice Plus plan under Blue Cross-Blue Shield. Before, the district had a standard plan.

Nokes said a teacher enrolled in the family plan will now pay about $2,900 a year compared to about $700 a year under the former plan.

Married couples who are both employed by the district will have 100 percent of their health plan paid for by the district. That represents about 20 percent of the association members, Nokes said.

Nokes said teachers now have a medical reimbursement account in which they can pay funds pretax for items not covered under the insurance plan and co-payments.

In addition, teachers will receive a 3 percent cost-of-living increase in each of the three years of the contract.

In the first year of the 2005-06 contract, the teachers also will receive a 3 percent cost-of-living increase that would have been granted each for 2003-04 and 2004-05, according to the two officials. That means teachers will receive a total 9 percent increase in 2005-06, Nokes said.