Vote by Bedford school board on teacher pay cuts is called off

7/12/2012

TEMPERANCE — The Bedford Public Schools Board of Education will not be voting on pay cuts for teachers at a special meeting this evening as it had originally planned to do.

The board instead will meet in executive session at Monroe Road Elementary School at 6:30 p.m., reconvene for its customary public commentary period, and adjourn.

The meeting was scheduled so the board could vote on imposing its last, best offer on the teachers’ union, the Bedford Education Association, which has been without a contract for two years. The financially strapped district has a deficit elimination plan pending with the Michigan Department of Education that depends on more than $900,000 in concessions from teachers and other cost-saving measures to achieve a balanced budget.

Howard Schwager, the school system’s director of human resources and labor relations, said negotiations with the teachers would continue.