By Thane Grauel

WESTPORT — Three committees of the Representative Town Meeting on Tuesday night voted to not reject a contract for teachers that would give raises totaling 9.86 percent over three years.

The Employee Compensation, Education and Finance Committees all strongly endorsed the contract, with just one member abstaining.

The agreement will now go before the full RTM for a vote.

The pact was approved by the Westport Education Association on Oct. 14. The Board of Education approved it at a meeting Oct. 18.

The agreement will cost the school district an additional $5.5 million between July 2022 and June 2025.

If the RTM takes no action, the pact is approved. If it votes to reject the deal, it will go to binding arbitration.

There are about 550 teachers in Westport Public Schools.

Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice said the market for teachers is very tight, and “having a good contract goes a long way.”

“This is a very fair deal across the board,” he said. “We got there burning the midnight oil, but I think at the end of the day the town will be pleased.”

John Bayers, the school system’s director of human resources, said the new contract would begin July 1, 2022, and runs for three years. It will increase salaries, on average, 3.41 percent in the first year, 3.25 percent the second year and 3.2 percent the final year.

The increase is based on the annual step process, not a general wage increase, Bayers said.

The current 20-step salary scale for teachers, based on longevity and education, spans from $49,059 to $125,062.

The new agreement would include a high-deductible health premium plan of 19 percent in the first year and 19.5 in the next two years.

“I think that you guys did a remarkable job of sort of … achieving savings in both directions, so, well played,” Seth Braunstein, RTM-6, said.

“There’s always things that we try to move towards,” Bayers said. “There were certain language changes that the teachers wanted that we didn’t agree to and I think that in the end, it was a fair agreement that we came to.”

Peter Gold, RTM-5, who abstained from the vote, asked Bayers if there was anything he wanted but didn’t get from the contract.

Bayers said both sides wanted some items they didn’t get, such as language changes, but overall there were no great losses for the district.

“I think we really felt like we came to a fair agreement,” he said.

Bayers noted that at the beginning of the negotiations Board of Finance members and other officials were vocal in thanking the teachers for their work over-and-above over the last two years.

“That went a long way, building that momentum through the negotiations where it wasn’t a ‘Gotcha!’ kind of thing,” he said. “It was more, ‘How are we going to come to an agreement?’”