Cooperstown Central School Superintendent Mary Jo McPhail and CCS Faculty Association President Marjorie Schleining formally announced Tuesday that the school's faculty contract was approved by both parties.

The new agreement, which runs from 2004 until 2007, allows for a 12 percent salary increase at 4 percent a year thoughout the next 3-years. Because the faculty has been working without a contract since the beginning of the school year, it will not receive retroactive pay to make up for the salary increase. The faculty's prior contract granted them a 3.2 percent salary increase per year.

"We would like to express appreciation to members of both negotiating teams who were assisted by John Trela, ONC BOCES Labor Relations Specialist and Jim Henck, NYSUT Labor Relations Specialist," McPhail and Schleining said in a joint press release.

The new contract also contains changes in health benefit coverage. Insurance deductables will be increased in the new contract.

"We wanted it to stay the same," Schleining said. "But we knew we had to give on something."

The new agreement also increases the amount of monetary credit teachers receive for having added graduate credits.

Schleining said the wording in some of the contract also created a temporary hangup in the negotiations. She said the 102 faculty association members wanted to make sure certain parts of the contract were completely understood by not only both the school board and the faculty association, but also by future board and association members who may review the contract years from now.

"It took a lot of work," Schleining said. "I feel relieved that our contract will be consistent for the next two and a half years."