MCCSC board hears tentative labor agreement, OKs 2026 budget

The Monroe County Community School Corporation (MCCSC) presented its tentative collective bargaining agreement for 2025-2027 at a Tuesday (Oct. 28) regular meeting of the school board.

No vote was taken on the labor agreement, but the board approved MCCSC’s 2026 budget.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the tentative labor agreement was summarized by superintendent Markay Winston. The agreement is between MCCSC and the Monroe County Education Association (MCEA), the teachers’ union.

The new contract will take effect when it’s ratified by the board and will run through June 2027. Ratification is expected at the board’s next meeting in about three weeks.

Last week, on Oct. 23, union teachers voted on the agreement. Of the 536 union members who voted, 178 voted “yes,” and seven voted “no.” That’s according to an email from MCEA president Jenny Noble-Kuchera.

Any basic salary adjustment that might be a part of the agreement has not yet been publicly disclosed.

Other features of the new agreement include the following:

• For each of the next two school years, teachers “rated effective or highly effective” will receive a $1,000 one-time stipend.
• Paid parental leave increases from 8 to 10 days for all teachers.
• Teachers with children enrolled in MCCSC’s pre-K through sixth grade receive a 20% discount on the Extended Day program—child supervision before and after school. The program costs $8 per child per half-day, or $16 for care both before and after a school day.
• Reduced retirement benefits: MCCSC’s matching retirement contribution will be capped at 3.5% of salary, down from 5%. This reduces the maximum benefit by about $900 annually based on 2024-2025 pay scales.

Specifics of the contract were not discussed by board members at Tuesday’s meeting.

Winston characterized the negotiations as “a very collaborative and genuine process,” thanking those involved in the bargaining.

“I know that it was not a great year for any of us,” board president April Hennessey said at the meeting. “We have been extraordinarily limited this year in what we’re able to offer as a result of some of the cuts that are coming and the cuts that we’ve already seen.”

This is a contrast to November 2023, when the 2023-2025 MCEA contract was ratified. Then-superintendent Jeff Hauswald said at a regular board meeting that MCCSC prioritized recruiting more staff, partly using wage increases, to fill vacant positions, and said the district “had record increases in dollar amounts over the last four years.” He said revenue was increased thanks to the district’s 2022 referendum.

That previous contract increased the starting salary of a teacher with a bachelor’s degree from $50,000 to $57,750 over the contract’s two effective years, and all teachers received raises.

Board president Hennessey concluded the agenda by saying: “We will ratify the MCEA agreement at the Nov. 18 board meeting.”

The Indiana Education Employment Relations Board, the state agency that oversees public teacher labor relations, has a Nov. 15 deadline for collective bargaining agreements. Collective bargaining can officially begin only after Sept. 15. Noble-Kuchera told The B Square that MCCSC has requested an extension so that the agreement can be ratified at its Nov. 18 board meeting.

2026 budget approved

Also Tuesday (Oct. 28), the school board voted to approve the 2026 budget. Across all funds, the district expects to spend no more than $181,004,367 in 2026, which is about $6.7 million less than the 2025 budget.

MCCSC is currently eight months into its two-year financial plan. The district is projecting millions in losses as a result of state legislation and lowering student enrollment. Natural attrition and non-classroom position eliminations have prevented teacher layoffs prior to this school year. The next update on the financial plan will be given at the November board meeting.