Monadnock legal battle cease fire; 'things are better now'

SWANZEY CENTER - United behind a new contract, Monadnock Regional School District teachers and the school board have agreed to drop a legal battle that had been pending before the N.H. Public Employee Labor Relations Board.

Lawyers on both sides came to a final agreement last week on the matter - a dispute over health insurance savings - and will soon be withdrawing their claims from the state board, according to district attorney Paul L. Apple.

The rift started last April, when the school board voted in favor of switching health insurance carriers from Anthem to Cigna/United American.

The shift would have been effective throughout N.H. School Administrative Unit 38, which covers the Monadnock district, along with Hinsdale and Winchester.

Staying with Anthem netted hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings as the result of a competitive bidding process, said Katherine E. L. Chambers, Unit 38 business manager.

But switching carriers would have saved the districts upwards of $1 million, according to Unit 38 officials. This required approval from teacher and support staff unions in all three districts to move forward.

Cigna's bid expired last May, after unions in all three districts opted not to vote on the proposal at all, Chambers said.

Cheryl J. Kahn, president of the Monadnock teachers' union, told The Sentinel last summer that teachers had heard negative things about the proposed Cigna coverage and in May voted unofficially to only discuss the matter as part of negotiations for a new contract.

This unofficial vote, she said in an interview this morning, was made by a group of about 30 to 40 union members. But, she said, no union member had indicated any interest to her in switching health insurance carriers at the time.

The full union agreed to this again by official vote in June, she said, after the Cigna bid had already expired.

The failure of the union to vote on the matter prompted the district to file a complaint with the state's public employee labor relations board last July.

"The (Monadnock teachers' union's) refusal to consider, in good faith, the District's proposal to change insurance carriers constitutes an unfair labor practice," Apple wrote in the complaint dated July 12.

The teachers' union struck back in August, asking the state board to dismiss the district's claims and charging the district with unfair labor practices of its own.

However, since the union and school board agreed on a new teachers' contract in November, Kahn said, "It just seemed kind of pointless to go forward ... Things are better now."

Colline Dreyfuss, chairman of the school board, echoed her.

"It just got to the point where I think it would have been petty to continue on," she said. "It's best for the district, in my opinion, just to move past it."

The prospect of a cease-fire on the issue was first brought up during mediation for the teachers' contract, but didn't figure directly into contract negotiations, according to Kahn.

If the district and teachers had moved forward with the dispute - which was slated to go to a hearing before the state board later this month - Kahn said, "It would have brought up bad feelings, and we don't need that now."

Instead, she said, both sides need to work together toward getting voter approval for the contract in March and improving district schools.

Superintendent Kenneth R. Dassau, called the resolution "a very positive first step" toward addressing larger issues, such as Monadnock High School's tenuous accreditation status.

But Sullivan school board member Timothy Aho said he thinks the matter still should have gone before the state board.

"It's not a moot point," he argued, charging that some teachers had prevented the vote from coming before the rest of the teachers' union - an action, he said, the state should rule on to set a precedent for the future.

Apple said he agrees. But, he said he doesn't think continuing the legal battle is "an expense that the taxpayers of Monadnock ultimately should bear at this point, in light of the circumstances.

"We have an agreement," he said. "I'm sure there will be some other school district and union locked in battle that will be able to flesh this particular legal issue out."