By: Evelyn Short

Teachers in the Souderton Area School District have made their final best offer.

"Our negotiating team came up with a last best offer," Bill Lukridge, president of the teachers union, the Souderton Area Education Association, said on Monday night.

Lukridge and the union's negotiating team met late Monday afternoon to discuss the offer and came up with one by Monday evening.

"We did give it to the school board, but we're having the school board not release the info," Lukridge said.

He said there are two issues that need to be cleared up before the union negotiators release their last best offer to the public.

The first is that they need to submit the last best offer to the third neutral arbitrator, however it seems that person has not been confirmed, Lukridge said.

Last week, the district had named the three members of the panel that would arbitrate the dispute between the board and the teachers.

SAEA chose Donald Atkiss as its interest arbitrator, the school district chose Mark Fitzgerald as its interest arbitrator, and both had agreed to name Rochelle Kaplan to be the neutral arbitrator on the three-person panel.

"We were under the understanding that Rochelle Kaplan would be the third arbitrator, but she hasn't responded yet," Lukridge said. "That hasn't been confirmed yet."

The second issue is how public comments are legally allowed to be made, Lukridge said.

The school district has previously said that public comments on last best offers for both sides will be accepted by e-mail and regular mail.

"We have an area of dispute because we're not sure if law allows e-mail comments or only hard copy," Lukridge said.

The district's school board and the SAEA entered into a state mandated arbitration process last week following a 13 day teachers strike.

As part of the arbitration process, both the school board and the teachers union are required by state law to submit final best

contract offers to a panel of three arbitrators named.

Last Thursday night, the school board voted unanimously to approve their final best offer, which was made public and posted on the district Web site www.SoudertonSD.org on Friday.

"I am hopefully expecting that the union will have its last best offer in our hands by the end of the day," school board negotiator Jeffrey Sultanik said Monday afternoon.

Sultanik did not expect the union's final best offer to differ significantly from their previous offer at the bargaining table, at least in the contentious areas of teacher salaries and health care benefits.

Lukridge said Monday night that their side is not commenting about what was contained in their last best offer until it is released to the public.

According to Sultanik, the arbitration process began when the teachers returned to work on Friday, Sept. 19, and the 10-day period allowed to both sides to make their final best offers expired Monday.

Union negotiator Gary Smith last week disputed Sultanik's timeline of events, but Sultanik indicated Monday that their argument had been resolved.

"I have been in e-mail contact with Mr. Smith starting on Sunday as to how we concluded when their last best offer was due. He had some misunderstanding of the requirements, but he at least intimated to me that we will be getting something today," Sultanik said, referring to Monday.

Once both sides' offers are officially received by the arbitration panel, they will be posted online and a 10-day public comment period will commence.

The school district has said that comments on either offer can be sent via e-mail to ArbitrationComments@soudertonsd.org or by mail to the school district's offices at 760 Lower Road, Souderton, PA 18964.

All comments must be in writing and contain the name and address of a resident of the Souderton Area School District.

Comments will be collated by the district and will be provided to the arbitration panel once the 10-day public comment period has ended.