BREWER – A little more than a year after their previous contract expired, members of the school committee and the local teachers union have struck an agreement on a new labor pact.

The new three-year agreement, retroactive to Sept. 1 of last year, was ratified by members of the Brewer Education Association on Tuesday. It was signed by representatives from both sides at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday at Brewer High School and ratified by the school committee Wednesday night.

Contract talks had been ongoing here since late 1999. The school committee’s contract with the Brewer Education Association expired at the end of August 2000. Since then, teachers had continued working under the terms of their previous three-year labor pact.

Representatives from both sides of the divide said pay and benefits were the two biggest sticking points.

In a closely watched referendum in March, union members rejected by a single vote a proposed three-year contract. The final tally was 56-55, with all but 18 of the group’s members participating.

The results of this week’s contract vote were not immediately available. Superintendent Betsy Webb said Wednesday that union leaders had not divulged the final tally as of early evening.

The contract provides teachers pay increases of 3.5 percent for each of the first two years and 4 percent in the final year, Webb said. It also provides for step increases for those still climbing their way up the pay scale and a cost-sharing formula for health insurance that would be phased in over the duration of the agreement.

“It’s been a very long process and we’re very happy to have it over with,” BEA President Darryl King said Wednesday night after returning from an open house at Brewer High School. He said it was his understanding that teachers would be paid the 3.5 percent increase retroactive to last September by the end of this month.

Teachers union officials said they had decided not to divulge the voting results.

“It really doesn’t matter if it passed by one vote or 11 or 50,” said Jacqueline Norton, leader of the teachers’ negotiating team. “Because of the controversy it caused last time, we’ve decided not to disclose that.”

“Although we’re happy to have it over with, we feel that the teachers still in some ways aren’t treated fairly,” said Norton, citing the example of unused sick days. Most other unionized labor groups in the school system can exchange the unused sick days for cash. Teachers had attempted to gain that benefit but were unsuccessful, she said.

Norton, who has served as a union negotiator for some three decades, said this round of negotiations was unusual in that it was drawn out and involved a negotiator from “out of town. That was a bitter pill to swallow,” she said.

The committee hired the Portland firm Drummond, Woodsum and MacMahon to negotiate on its behalf, at a cost in excess of $38,000 as of the firm’s most recent bill, school officials said this week. The union was assisted by a negotiator provided by the Maine Education Association, with the cost of that service built into membership dues.

She also acknowledged that negotiations had been public and contentious – with informational pickets in front of Brewer High School as recently as last week – and that a great deal of mistrust had built up on both sides during the negotiating process.

“Everyone, I’m sure, is glad it’s over,” Norton said. “It’s going to take a while for wounds to heal. Hopefully, we can get on with the mending process now.”